THERE  can  be  no 
hope  of  progress  or 
freedom  for    the 
people  without  the  un 
restricted  and  complete 
enjoyment  of  the  right 
of  free  speech,  free  press 
and  peaceful  assembly. 

Gift  of 
IRA  B.  CROSS 


GIFT  OF 


. 


= 


SOULS  OF  THE  INFINITE 

-  By  Dr.  S.  £  Qrigg* 

Illustrated  by  tk*  Author 

€J  An  Historic  tale,  the  theme  of  which  deals  with  the  reincarnation  of 
the  soul  It  portrays  in  a  racy  and  picturesque  style  the  evolution  of 
the  mind  of  man  from  the  dawn  of  history  to  the  present  day,  and  is 
eminently  readable  and  worth  while. 

12MCX,  CLOTH.  $1.00  NET 


THE  STUYVESANT  PRESS 

NEW   YORK 


SOULS  OF  THE  INFINITE 


SOULS  OF 
THE  INFINITE 

An  Outline  of  the  Truth 


BY 

S.  E.  GRIGGS,  A.B.,  M.D. 


ILLUSTRATED    BY    THE    AUTHOR 


NEW  YORK 

THE  METROPOLITAN  PRESS 
1911 


7 


Copyright,  1911,  by 
THE  METROPOLITAN  PRESS 

.Registered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  London 
'•  (All  Rights  Reserved) 


.  Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Dr.  S.  E.  Griggs Frontispiece 

A.  gentle,  rolliag  country  with  green  hills  in  the  back 
ground 3 


He  came  often  now. 


But  the  soul   was  striving,   striving  to   fulfil   its   mis 
sion Facing      8 

Ruins  of  one  of  the  prehistoric  temples  in  the  lower 
Tigris  Valley 21 

Westward  the  army  toiled 40 

That  night  as  Chinzer  stood  his  guard  alone 47 

And  there  were  Nejd  horses  there  in  numbers 51 

lone    68 

A  royal  hunt 95 

One   lone   knight   rode   out   before   the   battle   joined, 
tossing  his  sword  in  air 97 

Bowed  by  the  weight  of  centuries  he  leans  upon  his  hoe  109 

Hen    121 

The  same  old  paths  were  by  the  river Facing  128 

Mrs.  Hassett  ,  Facing  146 


PREFACE 

Read  slow.    Do  not  skip. 

Do  not  hasten  for  the  end; 

because  the  moral  is  not  there, 

neither  is  the  end,  without  the 
beginning  and  the  journey. 


Til 


Souls  of  the  Infinite 


CHAPTER  I 

ONCE  upon  a  time,  very  long  ago,  thousands 
of  years  before  the  Star  of  Bethelem  was  set, 
thousands  of  years  before  the  Pyramids  were 
built,  away  back  it  happened,  ages  and  ages, 
before  ever  history  began.  Can  you  imagine 
how  things  must  have  looked  then?  When  the 
human  family  was  very  small,  when  they 
roamed  over  just  a  portion  of  one  continent 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  great,  wide  world  wras 
new  and  unsettled.  When  all  of  Europe,  all 
of  Africa,  all  of  North  and  South  America 
contained  not  one  civilized  being.  There  must 
have  been  a  lot  of  room  in  the  world  then — 
think  of  all  the  countries  that  we  know  and 
there  was  nobody  there — it  must  have  been  a 

lonesome  place  to  live  in. 

i 


tit  V  vvi««i :: 'Souls  of  the  Infinite 

How  do  you  suppose  the  valley  of  the  Ti 
gris  looked  in  those  early,  early  days  when  the 
oldest  town  in  the  world  was  not  yet  thought 
of  and  the  Jordan  was  away,  way  out  on  the 
frontier?  Of  course,  you  most  probably  have 
never  seen  the  Tigris  at  any  time,  but  then 
you  have  read  about  it  in  the  geography;  it 
is  in  Central  Asia.  Well,  this  valley  looked 
quite  some  like  it  does  to-day.  It  was  much 
shorter,  though;  the  river  itself  was  swift 
er  and  not  so  deep.  The  grass  on  its  banks,  the 
trees  and  the  wild  flowers,  the  blue  sky  and  the 
hills  looked  just  the  same  as  now. 

About  two-thirds  of  the  way  up  the  river  on 
the  eastern  bank  a  large  tributary  stream  used 
to  empty  in  from  a  gentle,  rolling  country  with 
green  hills  in  the  background,  and  it  was  up 
from  the  bank  of  this  tributary  stream,  in  that 
long,  long-ago  day  which  we  have  told,  that  a 
young  man,  or  rather  a  boy,  was  climbing.  He 
was  hardly  old  enough  yet  to  be  called  a  man. 
He  had  been  down  to  the  river  to  get  a  drink 
and  was  going  back  up  to  the  shade  of  a  wide- 
spreading  tree.  His  body  was  very  brown  from 
the  sun  and  weather,  for  he  wore  no  covering 
except  a  piece  of  sheepskin  around  his  loins, 
but  you  could  see  that  his  skin  was  naturally 


Souls  of  the  Infinite 


A  gentle  rolling  country  with  green  hills  in  tht  background 


of  the  Infinite 


white.  From  the  nature  of  his  clothing  you 
probably  suppose  he  was  tending  sheep.  Well, 
in  a  way,  he  was;  for,  although  this  was  so 
many,  many  thousand  years  ago,  still  they  had 
sheep  then  and  had  had  for  a  long  time  be 
fore  this. 

He  was  quite  tall,  this  boy,  and  his  arms  and 
legs  were  rather  lanky,  which  gave  him  that 
kind  of  a  bean-pole  appearance  which  comes  to 
most  boys  of  about  this  age.  The  expression 
of  his  face  spoke  for  very  little,  though  it  was 
remarkably  good,  considering  the  people  from 
which  he  came.  His  forehead  was  straighter 
and  higher  than  the  average  and  his  nose  was 
not  as  flat  as  most  of  the  noses  in  those  days, 
but  on  the  whole  he  looked  very  much  like  his 
father  and  his  grandparents  had  looked  for  a 
thousand  years.  Perhaps  a  little  better,  but 
very,  very  little. 

He  was  a  mixture  of  Aryan  blood,  which 
probably  partly  accounted  for  his  looks  ;  it  may 
also  have  partly  accounted  for  the  fact  that  he 
was  restless  and  fretted  a  little  under  his 
shepherd's  habit.  You  may  think  that  nobody 
ever  fretted  in  those  days,  but  that  is  because 
you  do  not  know.  This  boy  was  perfectly  seri 
ous  about  it;  in  fact,  he  was  troubled  about  it, 


Souls  of  tJie  Infinite  (      -,  ;    :  :*• 


He  came  often  now 


o/  the  Infinite 

something  was  making  him  restless.  Often 
times  in  the  heat  of  the  day,  when  his  flocks 
and  the  other  shepherds'  were  asleep,  he  would 
be  moving  about  or  would  get  up  and  go  for  a 
drink,  as  he  did  on  this  occasion.  There  seemed 
to  be  something  like  a  struggle  going  on  some 
where  within  him,  but  he  could  not  place  it. 
It  seemed  as  if  there  was  something  he  wanted 
to  do,  something  he  ought  to  do,  but  he  could 
not  tell  what  it  was.  He  would  look  at  the 
trees  and  the  grass,  the  sky  and  the  hills  around 
the  east,  the  river  running  away  to  the  south, 
the  whole  of  his  little  world;  there  must  be 
something  in  it  somewhere  which  he  must  do, 
something  different  than  he  had  ever  done  be 
fore.  But  his  angular,  sinewy  arms  and  legs 
felt  helpless — he  could  not  do  it  with  them. 
It  was  something  he  could  not  see.  He  did 
not  know  what  it  was.  He  did  not  even  know 
how  to  look  for  it. 

He  was  sure  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  tend 
ing  sheep,  for  he  knew  all  that  was  necessary 
to  know  about  that.  He  also  knew  all  the 
folk-lore  of  his  people,  and  he  understood 
thoroughly  every  one  of  their  crude  indus 
trial  arts.  He  could  make  a  bow  better 
than  any  boy  in  his  tribe,  and  could  shoot  it 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  7 

farther  and  straighter.  He  could  also  cut  out 
a  sweeter-toned  reed  from  the  pipe-plants  by 
the  river.  But  his  fathers  and  his  forefathers 
had  done  these  things,  his  fellow  companions 
could  do  them.  It  was  something  else  that  he 
must  do ;  but  what  could  it  be  ?  What  else  was 
there  to  do?  He  could  not  tell ;  still,  something 
kept  calling,  calling  him  to  do.  It  was  not  any 
cf  these  things  which  he  knew.  He  felt  nearer 
to  it  when  he  was  farthest  away  from  them, 
when  he  was  watching  the  great  red  sun-god 
sink  down  in  the  western  sky,  or  when  he  was 
alone  by  the  river,  watching  its  rippling  waters 
hurrying  away,  always  hurrying  away. 

What  was  it,  then,  that  was  moving  this 
heathen  boy,  that  was  taking  the  dull  satisfac 
tion  from  out  his  shepherd's  habits? 

Something  was  calling  him — a  nameless 
something.  He  roamed  through  all  his  old, 
accustomed  haunts,  but  it  was  not  there.  He 
sought  the  deepest  shade,  the  wildest  stretch 
of  unbroken  plain,  but  it  was  not  there.  No, 
nor  could  he  find  it  through  all  the  shades  and 
plains  of  his  narrow  country.  It  came  from 
another  source.  But  something,  which  had 
very  much  to  do  with  this  calling,  he  felt,  we 
can  tell  you ;  though  he  did  not  know  it,  it  was 


8  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

his  soul.  For — yes,  he  had  a  soul.  Buried 
most  awfully  deep  it  was  and  shackled  by  a 
thousand  hereditary  tendencies,  and  stunted 
and  dwarfed,  still  he  had  it. 

How  it  got  in  him  we  are  not  certain,  but  it 
was  there,  and  it  was  making  itself  felt. 
Neither  will  we  say  positively  where  it  came 
from.  We  think  it  tumbled  from  the  lap  of 
destiny  through  the  shaking  of  her  apron;  how 
ever,  you  are  at  liberty  to  disbelieve  that  if  you 
choose.  But,  whether  you  believe  it  or  not,  it  is 
certain  she  was  having  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
it,  and  was  keeping  a  very  close  track  of  it. 
Opposite  the  page  open  for  its  actions  here  she 
had  set  down  the  name  of  Thaddeus,  but  thus 
far  the  ciphering  upon  the  page  was  very  faint 
and  very  blurred. 

But  the  soul  was  striving,  striving  to  ful 
fill  its  mission.  It  was  it,  that  kept  stirring, 
that  kept  turning  to  the  call,  that  silent,  im 
perative  call,  the  call  of  that  mysterious  cur 
rent  which  has  moved  man  on,  which  is  moving 
him  on  and  on,  to  some  eternal  sea.  This  bur 
ied  soul  had  heard  it. 

Human  beings  had  probably  been  here  in 
Central  Asia  for  a  good  many  thousands  of 
years  before  this,  but  they  left  no  traces 


But   the   soul    was   striving,    striving   to   fulfil    its   mission 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  9 

of  themselves — had  made  practically  no  prog 
ress. 

The  less  removed  man  was  from  the  brute, 
the  more  stationary  he  seemed.  Ages  and  ages 
were  required  for  the  most  rudimentary  ad 
vancement.  But,  however  stagnate  he  was,  he 
lost  nothing,  and  all  the  while,  slowly  but  sure 
ly,  he  was  approaching  the  time  when  his  hu 
mane  nature  would  unfold.  Something  was 
drawing  him  onward,  always  onward,  like  the 
tiny  hillside  stream  is  drawn  to  the  sea.  Im 
peded,  pent  up  and  choked  at  first,  but  always 
flowing  on,  until  it  sweeps  a  river  broad  and 
deep. 

To  the  south  of  this  place  of  which  we  speak, 
about  the  mouth  of  the  river,  there  was  a 
darker-skinned  race,  who  were  probably  a  little 
further  advanced.  They  were  more  populous 
and  better  builders,  being  more  industrious,  but 
most  of  their  buildings  were  huge,  useless,  mon 
umental  piles.  Their  mode  of  living  was  al 
most  the  same. 

So  away  back  in  that  heathen  darkness,  be 
fore  ever  there  were  any  signs  of  dawn,  this 
current  was  calling  Thaddeus.  Calling  him  to 
make  the  first  unguided  struggle  and  he  was 
groping  to  rise.  But  the  task  before  him 


10  \Souls  of  the  Infinite 

seemed  well-nigh  hopeless;  he  was  still  close 
to  the  primitive,  his  feet  were  rooted  in  tra 
dition,  there  was  no  certain  way  out,  and  no 
lights  to  guide.  Banks  of  superstition  blinded 
him  and  he  could  not  see. 

His  fathers  and  his  forefathers  for  genera 
tions  before  him  had  not  tried  to  see;  they  had 
paced  in  unheeding  darkness,  the  same  short 
and  beaten  path.  Why  should  he  leave  it? 
The  way  beyond  had  never  yet  been  tried. 
They  had  passed  their  satisfied  lives  with  these 
same  simple  things.  Why  should  he  strive  for 
something  different?  The  weight  of  centuries 
of  tribal  customs  was  on  his  youthful  shoulders ; 
why  should  he  rise  to  shake  it  off?  Why  could 
he  not  tie  his  sheepskin  girdle  about  him,  just 
as  his  forefathers  had  done,  and  lapse  peace 
fully  into  the  dull  contentment  of  his  sur 
roundings? 

But  these  peaceful  shepherd's  surroundings 
had  become  troubled  for  him.  The  dull  quiet 
of  his  accustomed  ways  had  become  disturbed. 
His  idle  haunts  had  come  to  fret  and  brood 
uneasiness.  There  was  no  place  now  where  he 
could  rest  in  dull  stupidity.  Not  one  place  of 
dumb  and  dormant  quiet  left  for  him.  He 
tried  them  all,  over  and  over  again,  but  the 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  11 

same  unrest  was  in  them  all;  the  same  name 
less  wanting  brooded  everywhere.  The  river 
only,  of  all  the  places  that  he  knew,  seemed  yet 
to  hold  a  kind  of  welcomeness;  but  it  was  not 
rest  he  found  beside  its  banks,  as  he  watched 
its  hurry  and  its  motion — it  was  a  different 
feeling. 

So  he  came  often  to  it,  not  to  drink,  but 
just  to  sit  beside  it.  There  was  something  in 
the  fretful  murmurs  of  its  current.  Its  water- 
spirit  seemed  to  know  his  vacant  wanting.  And 
as  its  wavy  shadowrs  would  play  over  his  sun- 
browned  face  you  might  almost  have  thought 
there  was  a  flicker  of  light  in  his  eye.  But 
oh,  so  faint,  just  the  feeblest  flicker.  This,  too, 
was  different  from  the  stolid  countenances  of 
his  companions. 

Thaddeus,  my  gentle  savage,  you  are  wak 
ing,  surely  waking.  Your  youthful  shoulders 
are  straining  beneath  that  iron  chain  of  cen 
turies.  They  will  break  it,  surely  break  it. 

He  had  made  him  a  better  reed  and  toilfully 
copied  some  new  and  sweeter  harmonies  from 
the  river,  for  which  he  began  to  love  the  river. 
He  played  them  over  and  over,  clear  and  loud, 
then  soft  and  low,  and  as  he  waited,  listening 
to  the  echoes  from  the  water,  he  began  to  think. 


12  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

Surely,  to  think.  Yes,  the  mind  of  man,  that 
dumb  and  dormant  thing,  which  had  been 
locked  in  slumbering  darkness  through  all  the 
vacant  ages  which  had  gone  before,  began  to 
stir  itself. 

Was  it  the  river  that  made  him  think  ?  Well, 
maybe  it  was.  He  did  not  know.  But  he  was 
thinking,  and  it  was  of  the  river  that  he  thought 
the  most.  Who  put  it  there?  Who  gave  it 
water?  Why  was  it  always  hurrying  away? 
Who  planted  the  trees  upon  its  bank?  Did 
the  Great  Spirit  do  all  of  these  things?  He  did 
not  believe  it. 

Many  other  things  like  these  he  thought. 
Simple,  of  course,  but  it  was  very  well  for  him, 
because,  you  must  remember,  he  had  nothing 
to  start  with.  Established  facts  he  had  none 
at  all.  He  did  not  even  know  that  two  and  two 
made  four.  Nobody  knew  it  then.  He  could 
place  two  stones  with  two  other  stones  and 
count  them  up  to  four,  and  he  could  place  two 
sheep  with  two  sheep  and  see  that  he  had  four, 
but  that  it  would  always  make  four  he  did  not 
know.  Neither  did  he  know  that  there  was 
such  a  thing  as  right  and  wrong.  If  something 
injured  him,  he  immediately  wanted  to  resent 
it,  unless  the  something  was  too  powerful;  then 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  13 

he  was  simply  moved  to  get  away.  It  never 
appeared  to  him  as  either  right  or  wrong. 
Neither  did  it,  if  he  injured  someone  else. 
Right  or  wrong  he  did  not  know,  and  no  kind 
and  loving  angels  came  down  to  teach  him. 
There  were  no  angels  in  those  days.  He  had 
just  to  think  about  these  things  for  himself. 

So  he  worked  away,  and  as  fast  as  his  awk 
ward  but  energetic  brain  could  examine  things 
he  hurried  to  tell  them.  He  would  talk  about 
them  to  his  companions,  to  the  people  in  the 
village,  but  they  seemed  to  take  little  interest. 
They  could  not  understand.  They  rather  con 
sidered  that  something  had  gone  wrong  with 
him.  He  began  to  be  avoided.  Soon  no  one  at 
all  would  listen  to  him.  So  it  came  to  be  that 
the  most  part  of  this  thinking  business  of  his 
was  told  only  to  the  river. 

But  the  river  was  always  ready  to  listen,  was 
always  waiting  for  him  to  come,  was  always 
telling  him  of  new  things  to  think,  and  soon 
these  sprouting  thoughts  of  his  began  to  take 
a  wider  range.  He  began  to  question  other 
things — the  habits  of  his  people.  The  pain 
ful  way  they  marked  their  bodies  he  par 
ticularly  did  not  like.  Their  sacrificing  and 
torturing  of  themselves  to  please  their  sky-gods 


14  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

he  could  see  little  good  in.  Nor  did  he  quite  be 
lieve  in  the  killing  of  women  and  children,  as 
was  their  funeral  custom.  But  on  these  things 
he  never  voiced  his  thoughts.  Because  he  was 
afraid.  They  were  sacred  customs. 

Oh,  custom!  Thou  hast  ever  been  one  of 
the  strongest  shackles  that  bind  the  sons  of 
men. 

How  tedious  and  difficult  was  to  become  this 
new  path  he  was  starting,  nor  the  delusions  and 
racking  uncertainties  which  beset  it  he  did  not 
know — how  could  he  know?  Nor  if  he  was 
leaving  the  quiet  ways  where  ignorance  was 
bliss,  he  did  not  ask,  it  mattered  not,  there  was 
no  alternative,  nor  could  he  turn  him  back  how 
ever  steep  should  be  the  road.  But  Thaddeus 
was  not  thinking  to  turn  back;  no,  he  was 
minded  to  follow  it,  the  call  he'd  answered 
comes  not  to  the  faint.  Where  did  it  lead! 
Well,  first,  it  led  to  labor,  taxing  labor,  and 
soon  these  crudely  fashioned,  intellectual 
wheels  of  his  began  to  grind.  Thoughts  began 
to  get  entangled  in  the  cogs.  He  was  getting 
hold  of  grist  too  large  for  such  a  small  mill, 
and  too  much  material  was  crowding  in — river 
thoughts,  tree  and  mountain  thoughts,  village 
and  people  thoughts,  sky  thoughts,  star 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  15 

thoughts;  beyond  the  sky  thoughts  there 
seemed  to  he  no  limit  to  this  thinking  business. 
And  these  worrying,  puzzling,  questioning 
thoughts  so  entangled  him,  hopelessly  en 
tangled  him,  until  he  began  to  be  afraid  that 
maybe  he  really  had  gone  wrong.  They  would 
hold  fast  to  him  as  if  to  wear  him  out ;  still  he 
could  not  stop  it.  Something  in  his  head 
would  just  run  on,  and  on,  as  if  it  were  a  sep 
arate  living  thing.  He  was  bewildered.  If 
only  there  was  some  one  to  whom  he  might  go 
with  questions,  some  one  who  might  explain 
some  things  to  him.  But  the  wise  men  of  his 
village  did  not  know.  At  least,  they  could  not 
give  an  answer  that  sounded  right  to  him. 
They  only  seemed  to  know  the  traditions  of  his 
tribe — how  one  of  their  ancient  chiefs  had  built 
the  Thunder  Mountain;  how  Pitris,  with  but 
a  handful  of  braves,  had  driven  back  a  myriad 
warriors  from  the  savage  north,  and  how  Hus- 
sing  had  split  the  huge  table  rock  with  one 
blow  of  his  heavy  club.  But  these  things  he 
already  knew.  He  wanted  to  ask  other  ques 
tions — questions  that  kept  turning  over  and 
over  in  his  head  as  if  they  would  break  them 
selves  out.  But  there  was  no  one,  no  one  in 
the  whole  wide  world  to  whom  he  might  go — 


16  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

not  one  solitary  mortal  to  help  him.  For  the 
world  was  dark. 

But,  strange  enough,  as  this  difficult  think 
ing  business  kept  on,  the  troublesome  things 
began  to  untangle  themselves.  He  began  to 
answer  some  of  his  own  questions.  The  river 
helped  him.  The  trees  and  the  mountain 
helped  him.  The  great  wide  plain  with  its  hazy 
sky  helped  him.  And  something  else,  which  he 
did  not  know,  which  had  lost  itself  within  him, 
was  helping  him  most. 

One  day,  late  in  summer,  Thaddeus  drove 
his  flocks  far  up  the  winding  river,  or  perhaps 
it  would  be  better  to  say  he  followed  them,  for 
the  flocks  in  those  days  took  about  as  much 
of  the  responsibility  and  "thought  for  the  mor 
row"  upon  themselves  as  did  the  people  who 
tended  them.  Farther  up  they  went  than  ever 
before,  because  the  grass  was  very  dry  on  the 
plains.  Thaddeus  was  playing  his  new  har 
monies,  and  he  could  play;  perhaps  not  to  the 
enjoyment  of  you  or  me,  but  it  made  sweet 
music  to  a  savage  ear.  The  tones  seemed  to 
blend  so  sweetly  with  the  limpid  notes  from 
the  water,  and  while  he  played  something  crept 
out  to  listen.  Was  it  a  wild- wood  fawn?  No; 
though  it  acted  much  the  same.  It  was  afraid. 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  17 

Still  it  wanted  to  come.  It  was  drawn  by  the 
chords  he  played,  and  the  harmonies  seemed  to 
hold  it. 

Ere  he  saw  it  Thaddeus  felt  its  coming,  just 
like  he  felt  the  evening,  only  different — a  deep 
er,  subtler  feeling.  He  turned  to  see  it,  and 
somehow,  like  a  memory  shadow,  he  seemed  to 
know  it.  And  it  was  then  no  longer  so  afraid, 
but  came  a  little  closer  and  sat  down  to  listen. 

There  seemed  to  be  a  kind  of  mutual  under 
standing  between  them,  perhaps  they  had  met 
somewhere  before,  or  perhaps  they  moved  in 
the  same  social  circles,  or  perhaps  more  pos 
sibly  they  had  long  before  this  romped  in  the 
lap  of  Destiny  together. 

All  the  rest  of  the  long  autumn  days  Thad 
deus'  flocks  were  pastured  far  up  the  river;  for 
he  was  now  divided  between  two  emotions.  He 
wanted  to  walk  by  the  river  and  think,  and  he 
wanted  to  sit  in  the  wood  and  play  his  reed 
with  this  new  creature  whose  acquaintance  he 
had  made.  Her  name,  to  destiny,  was  Phillis. 
She  came  from  the  Hill  Tribe. 

Theirs  was  no  formal  courtship,  no  social 
ladder  to  climb,  no  ambitious  parents  to  con 
ciliate  ;  no,  nor  did  they  even  know  the  worries 
of  a  flat.  But  as  Thaddeus  spent  his  days  with 


18  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

Phillis,  as  he  played  to  her  in  their  leafy  apart 
ments,  he  began  to  lose  that  restless,  thinking 
feeling — the  call  from  the  river — it  came  back 
to  him  fainter  and  fainter,  like  an  echo  from 
his  flute.  It  was  being  lulled  to  sleep.  It 
might  have  slumbered  again,  but  something 
happened,  something  fierce  and  terrible.  He 
had  heard  his  grandsire  tell  how  it  had  hap 
pened  once  before. 

The  greedy  hordes  from  the  south  were 
marching  upon  Lulubi. 

All  the  flocks  must  be  gathered  in.  Every 
tribe  must  muster  every  son.  The  cry  flew 
wild  through  valley  and  plain. 

Thaddeus  caught  the  spirit,  it  bounded 
through  his  pulse,  it  thrilled  him.  It  called  to 
fight  for  home,  to  strike  the  hated  ravisher, — 
courageous  impulses,  but  they  were  o'ershad- 
owed  by  a  far  fiercer  passion  which  it  kindled 
in  his  breast,  just  as  it  kindled  in  every  other 
native  breast — it  was  the  passion  for  war,  their 
dominant  passion;  in  fact,  the  only  passion 
they  possessed. 

All  the  animal  nature  of  their  wild  ancestors 
surged  through  them.  The  savage  rivermen 
from  their  bone-strewn  caves  were  incarnated 
again. 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  19 

The  battle  joined,  with  savage  warcry,  with 
clash  of  ragged  flint  and  wooden  buckler,  with 
frenzied  turmoil,  and  with  streams  of  blood. 
There  was  charge  on  charge  and  these  primi 
tive  sons  of  Lulubi  may  have  acquitted  them 
selves  with  credit,  may  have  performed  doughty 
deeds  of  valor,  but  there  was  no  one  to  com 
memorate,  no  historians  to  chronicle  and  no 
minstrels  to  immortalize. 

But  the  greedy  foe  were  unsubduable. 
From  every  charge  they  rallied  in  countless 
numbers.  Onward  they  came  like  sand  from 
the  desert,  till  strength  was  gone;  her  defense 
was  broken,  there  wras  none  to  hinder  and  Lu 
lubi  was  stricken. 

Her  scanty  fields  were  wasted  and  her  vil 
lages  in  ashes.  Her  old  men  slain  and  her 
young  men  taken  captive.  Everywhere  was 
ruin  and  slaughter.  Her  smiling  valleys  with 
myrtle  and  vine,  her  flocks  and  olive  groves, 
all  were  no  more.  The  ruthless  hand  spared 
nothing,  for  in  those  savage  days  to  show 
mercy  was  a  weakness. 


CHAPTER  II 

THADDEUS  was  among  the  captives.  He  was 
led  away  to  the  south,  to  the  sea-land,  and  made 
a  slave.  This  youth  from  the  upland  country, 
this  primitive  explorer  of  thoughts,  had  been 
immeshed  in  the  web  of  circumstances,  without 
choice ;  his  scene  of  action  had  been  shifted.  In 
stead  of  the  shady  river  bank  and  his  reed,  he 
had  now  the  marl-pits  and  the  hot  southern  sun. 

Strange  places  and  adverse  conditions  were 
about  him.  Swarthy  men  he  saw  who  wore 
straw  coverings  upon  their  bodies,  and  whose 
language  could  not  be  understood.  The  sun- 
god  beat  hot  upon  him,  the  mud  and  clay  was 
heavy  and  his  lanky  limbs  ached  with  the  labor. 
But  his  mind  was  clearer  now — something 
seemed  to  have  had  a  purging  effect  upon  it. 

Human  strife  and  bloodshed,  ruthless  and 
cruel  as  they  may  have  been,  have  been  abso 
lutely  essential.  Nothing  else  could  break  from 
people  the  tenacious  hold  of  customs. 

These  inhabitants  of  the  lower  Tigris,  while 
20 


Souls  of  the  Infinite 


Ruins  of  one  of  the  prehistoric  temples  in  the  lower  Tigris 

Valley 
— Rawlinson's  "Ancient  Monarchies." 


Spills  of  the  Infinite 


very  near  the  same  intellectual  level  as  their 
northern  neighbors,  were  a  step  in  advance  in 
the  progress  of  evolution.  They  were  more 
communistic  in  their  habits,  more  industrious 
and  more  collective  in  their  action.  Thaddeus 
observed  them  with  this  wondering,  question 
ing  curiosity  of  his: — The  huts  of  their  city 
spread  out  in  countless  numbers,  yet  there 
seemed  scarce  room  enough  for  all  the  people, 
so  crowded  were  the  streets  with  them: — Such 
strange  customs  they  observed  among  them 
selves,  and  they  bowed  down  to  so  many  queer 
images  of  wood  and  clay: — They  seemed  also 
very  busy,  always  hurrying  somewhere. 

Thaddeus  was  observing  things — that  is  not 
to  say  he  was  standing  around  looking  on;  he 
was  part  of  the  performance,  very  busy,  very 
much  employed.  He  and  his  fellows  were 
making  brick,  or  rather  making  large  mud 
slabs — making  them  under  very  caustic  induce 
ments  and  with  very  unpleasant  facilities.  For, 
besides  the  driving  taskmasters,  besides  the 
heat  and  the  gritty  mud  which  hurt  his  hands, 
he  had  a  very  uncomfortable  piece  of  wood 
fastened  to  his  leg,  which  made  walking  quite 
difficult  and  running  impossible.  But  they 
could  not  fasten  any  shackles  to  his  mind,  and 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  23 

while  his  hands  were  busy  his  mind  was  look 
ing  around  and  considering: — The  river — it 
seemed  to  him,  they  were  trying  to  stop  it  run 
ning,  with  this  baked  mud  which  they  made: 
— Streams  of  captive  slaves  were  continually 
carrying  it  into  the  river,  but  the  river  spread 
out  over  its  banks  and  flowed  on  just  the  same : 
— They  were  also  building  high,  massive  piles 
of  this  mud  upon  the  land,  probably  hoping  by 
them  to  climb  into  the  sky: — There  were  armies 
and  armies  of  workers,  a  few  were  white,  but 
the  most  part  were  dark,  much  darker  than  the 
Sumerian  people. 

Thaddeus  was  industriously  studying  this 
new  arrangement  of  things,  contriving  to  un 
derstand  its  meaning,  endeavoring  to  associate 
it  with  the  working  of  other  things  which  he 
knew.  He  was  trying  to  analyze  the  industry 
of  Sumeria  in  a  much  broader  way  than  they 
had  ever  tried  to  do  themselves. 

His  eager  brain  gathered  up  each  frag 
ment  of  knowledge.  He  began  to  copy  their 
language  and  to  adopt  their  manner.  He  was 
adjusting  himself  to  these  unavoidable  condi 
tions — an  ability  shown  afterward  to  be  mark 
edly  possessed  by  these  white-skinned  people. 
And  while  he  discharged,  with  as  much  grace 


24»  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

as  possible,  the  disagreeable  favors  these  Su- 
merians  were  asking,  he  was  also  formulating 
opinions  for  himself  about  the  things  he  saw. 

For  one  hundred  days  he  worked  in  the  bitu 
men  and  clay.  A  hundred  days  he  was  a  part 
of  the  ceaselessly  grinding  mill;  then,  probably 
because  of  the  adaptability  he  had  shown, 
possibly  because  he  was  too  light  for  the  la 
bor,  or  possibly  it  was  just  mere  chance,  but  he 
was  taken  away  from  the  marl-pits,  into  the 
busy  part  of  the  city,  and  placed  with  the  build 
ers — workmen  who  were  none  of  his  kin,  but  he 
perceived  that  they  also  were  bondmen.  But 
their  taskmasters  were  less  severe,  and  they 
wore  a  covering  upon  their  bodies  like  the  Su- 
merians,  the  which  was  also  given  to  him,  his 
sheepskin  girdle  having  long  since  succumbed. 
They  spoke  this  new  language  which  he  was  be 
ginning  to  adopt,  and  he  learned  much  from 
them. 

These  images  which  he  had  seen  about  the 
town  were  gods.  These  massive  structures 
which  they  piled  up  tier  on  tier  were  god- 
houses.  Strange,  it  seemed  to  him,  that  these 
gods  should  need  to  have  such  houses  built  for 
them.  But  his  was  not  now  to  question;  he 
was  only  to  build;  so  he  accepted  the  inevitable. 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  25 

The  circumstances  under  which  he  moved 
were  quite  beyond  his  control;  there  was  noth 
ing  else  for  him  to  expect.  He  understood  the 
dominating  political  situation  quite  thoroughly, 
much  better  than  many  of  those  who  dominated 
him.  He  knew  that  the  valleys  of  Lulubi  were 
wasted,  that  his  people  and  kindred  were  scat 
tered  and  slain.  He  knew  that  Sumeria  was 
the  master.  He  readily  perceived  her  great 
strength  and  her  great  activity.  He  also  saw 
that  she  was  pushing  forward,  with  forced  la 
bor,  gigantic  constructions,  the  object  of  which 
he  could  not  quite  understand.  She  was  ambi 
tiously  creating  and  he  was  helping  her, 
whether  by  his  own  choice  it  did  not  matter.  So 
he  built,  and  he  built  exceedingly  well.  The 
same  spirit,  wilich  in  the  marl-pits  had  marked 
him  to  survive,  dominated  him  here  and  drove 
him  to  excel. 

So  diligently  did  he  build,  and  such  cunning 
did  his  hand  display,  that  he  soon  became  one 
of  the  foremost  workmen,  and  often  marked 
the  tablets  with  their  curious  pictures,  which  he 
learned  to  understand. 

Thaddeus — the  gods,  for  some  reason,  had 
dealt  quite  unkindly  witii  him;  they  had  all  but 
killed  him,  enslaved  him  and  then  thoughtless- 


26  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

ly  tossed  him  to  the  bottom,  or,  more  properly 
speaking,  to  the  bottom  of  the  bottom — a 
stranger  in  bondage,  without  a  country  and 
without  a  people — but  he  was  climbing  up.  He 
had  already  reached  the  first  round,  which  was 
well,  for  the  bottom  rounds  are  very  long  steps, 
and  no  hand  was  out  to  help  him.  At  the  bot 
tom  of  the  ladder  there  are  no  helping  hands. 
If  there  are  hands  stretched  out  to  aid,  then 
you  are  not  at  the  very  bottom. 

The  god-houses  he  was  building  were  very 
high,  with  long  rows  of  steps  running  up  and 
down.  When  Thaddeus  was  up  he  could  see 
far  out  over  the  country  of  Sumeria,  a  beauti 
ful,  sunlit  valley  dotted  with  clustering  palm 
trees  and  yellow  with  fields  of  grain.  Of  the 
city,  the  most  of  the  huts  were  on  the  west  side 
of  the  river,  and  farther  out  to  the  west  he 
could  see  another  river  beyond  this,  the  plains 
stretching  away  to  meet  the  sky;  out  yonder,  he 
learned,  lived  the  wild  savages,  the  enemies  of 
Sumeria.  To  the  south,  the  river  wound  on, 
some  two  days'  journey  through  low,  marshy 
country  to  the  sea.  In  the  streets  of  the  city 
he  could  see  trains  of  naked  slaves  going  to 
and  fro,  and  men  of  Sumeria  in  their  straw 
coverings — a  kind  of  skirt  extending  from  the 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  27 

waist  to  midway  the  thighs,  often  very  finely 
woven,  but  of  women  scarce  a  one. 

The  women  here  were  kept  mostly  about  the 
houses,  and  they  were  kept  well  covered  in  this 
straw  fabric.  For  it  was  already  an  estab 
lished  fact,  that  the  most  part  of  a  woman's 
body  is  a  thing  obscene,  not  to  be  looked  at  in 
public.  By  the  way,  some  nations  still  scru 
pulously  adhere  to  this  heathen  belief  and  sta 
tion  strong,  brave  men  on  guard  at  such  places 
as  Coney  Island  and  Atlantic  City. 

The  days  he  worked  were  very  long  and  he 
had  only  poached  grain  and  some  dried  fruit  to 
eat,  and  at  night  he  slept  in  a  roofless  inclosure 
guarded  by  Sumerian  soldiers.  But  he  wore 
no  wrooden  shackles  here,  and  though  he  was 
busy  the  work  was  not  so  hard.  He  had  be 
come  quite  resigned  to  it,  and  was  now  a  splen 
did  builder.  Still,  do  you  think  that  his  mind 
did  not  often  turn  again  to  his  native  plains, 
to  his  flocks  and  the  music  of  his  flute,  to  those 
summer  days  when  he  walked  with  Phillis  and 
played  to  her,  when  all  his  world  was  bright 
and  he  was  free  and  careless?  If  you  could 
sometimes  see  him  gazing  from  the  top  of  one 
of  those  precipitous  god-houses,  with  a  far 
away,  longing  look  on  his  face,  and  hear  him 


28  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

heave  a  muffled  sigh,  you  would  know  he  did. 
But  this  was  a  far  different  world,  an  active 
world,  harsh  and  cruel,  where  there  were  only 
days  of  toil.  Still  his  hardened  muscles  had 
come  not  to  mind  it  much;  he  was  himself  be 
ginning  to  change,  for  continued  environment 
of  whatever  kind  is  bound  to  have  its  ef 
fect.  His  face  now  wore  a  different  look,  he 
was  no  longer  that  mild  shepherd  boy  with  staff 
and  flute.  He  would  have  felt  quite  queer  now 
with  only  a  sheepskin  girdle  on.  The  hills 
vwith  flocks  alone  would  probably  have  seemed 
a  lonesome  place.  And  his  work,  unnatural 
though  it  was,  was  beginning  to  take  a  place  in 
his  life.  He  had  become  a  part  of  the  city. 
Her  restless  activity  seemed  to  mate  his  rest 
less  mind.  That  subtle  attachment  was 
fastened  which  the  city  had,  even  in  those 
pagan  days. 

As  his  hand  through  care  and  practice  be 
came  still  more  cunning,  his  work  still  lighter 
grew.  He  came  to  do  but  the  finer  parts. 
Also,  with  less  arduous  toil,  more  often  would 
come  that  far-away  look  in  his  face.  But  he 
was  not  always  thinking  of  his  native  hills. 
For  that  questioning  thing  within  him,  which 
had  been  obscured  in  the  absorbing  straits  of 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  29 

new  conditions,  had  gathered  strength,  and  was 
now  reasserting  itself  with  a  much  firmer 
grasp.  It  was  reviewing  this  new  life  of  his, 
was  taking  to  account  these  Sumerian  customs 
and  these  Sumerian  gods. 

Once  as  he  mused  thus  o'er 
his  work,  marking  a  huge  )  \  T  Q 
clay  tablet — wTiting  a  his 
tory  that  should  prove  all  too 
fragile  for  the  stretch  of 
time  —  that  should  never 
reach  the  distant  workers  that  were  to  come — 
once  as  he  stood  writing  thus,  the  prince  of 
the  Western  Tribe  (Sumeria  was  composed 
of  four  tribes,  each  with  a  prince — there  were 
no  kings  in  the  world  as  yet)  came  by  and 
paused  to  watch  him  make  the  lines.  He  in 
quired  concerning  the  fair-skinned  boy,  for 
Thaddeus  looked  almost  white  beside  his 
dusky  companions.  Then  he  bade  the  guard 
bring  Thaddeus  down  to  him,  and  as  he  came 
he  liked  him  more,  for  Thaddeus  was  straight 
of  bearing  and  had  still  his  freeborn  manner. 

"Gentle  youth,"  said  he,  "where  is  thy  na 
tive  land?" 

Thaddeus  answered:  "I  am  from  the  north, 
most  noble  sire,  from  Lulubi,  near  her  eastern 


30  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

mountains ;  but  for  twenty  moons  have  I  known 
this  southern  clime." 

He  asked  him  much  about  his  work,  and  why 
he  made  the  pictures  running  thus.  And 
Thaddeus  explained  to  him  many  things  which 
he  had  thought — how  that  if  the  lines  ran  so, 
the  picture  should  mean  more,  and  if  this  way 
different — so  that  the  prince  seemed  pleased 
and  dismissed  him  and  went  his  way. 

But  on  the  morrow  came  a  messenger  and 
Thaddeus  was  taken  away.  The  prince  had 
bought  him  for  a  steward  in  his  household. 

So  Thaddeus  ministered  in  the  prince's 
household,  and  the  prince  favored  him  because 
of  his  understanding,  and  made  him  overseer 
both  in  his  house  and  in  his  fields.  And  he 
waxed  strong  in  all  the  lore  of  the  Sumerians, 
for  his  brain  was  eager,  and  his  restless  soul 
was  quiet  only  so  long  as  there  were  new  things 
to  understand. 

This  prince  of  the  Western  Tribe  was  ac 
counted  a  mighty  man  among  his  people,  a 
counselor  in  peace  and  a  leader  in  war.  He 
had  much  land  and  many  slaves.  He  had  cattle 
and  houses  and  earthen  vessels  of  fine  work 
manship.  In  his  household  were  many  concu 
bines,  who  weaved  fine  plaits  of  colored  straw, 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  31 

and  his  mistress  wore  precious  stones  and 
pieces  of  gold  brought  from  a  far  country. 
She  was  a  Turanian  by  birth,  the  daughter  of 
a  chief  whom  the  Sumerians  had  taken  captive, 
and  she  showed  Thaddeus  much  rude  affection, 
because  of  his  stewardship.  She  was  quite 
comely,  with  large,  dark  eyes,  but  unthinking 
eyes,  that  reflected  nothing  from  their  dark 
ness,  for  women  here  were  kept  secluded  and 
restricted — a  picture  of  man's  first  subjuga 
tion,  which  was  woman. 

Thaddeus  went  much  to  and  fro  in  the  city 
about  his  master's  business.  He  saw  the  build 
ing  of  her  many  temples ;  he  read  the  many  in 
scriptions,  most  of  which  he  did  not  believe. 
He  did  not  believe  there  were  so  many,  many 
gods,  with  such  queer  powers  and  requiring 
such  useless  service.  Neither  did  he  believe 
they  did  all  these  wonderful  things  for  the 
Sumerian  people.  In  his  youth  he  had  held 
little  confidence  in  the  rites  and  sacraments  of 
the  sky-gods;  he  now  held  nothing  but  vague 
disgust  for  these  gods  of  clay. 

Still,  often  as  he  read  he  stopped  and  pon 
dered.  Perhaps  his  benighted  mind  was  try 
ing  then  to  pierce  the  future,  who  knows?  To 
peer  a  thousand  thousand  years  adown  the 


32  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

path  of  time,  when  empires  should  decay  and 
students  search  through  buried  heaps  for  these 
same  fragile  tablets.  Perhaps  he  vaguely  saw 
the  coming  of  another  day  which  this  day  and 
time  should  know  not — which  he  should  know, 
but  which  should  know  not  him — and  longed  to 
leave  some  lingering  trace  behind. 

Thaddeus,  though  mentally  some  advanced, 
was  still  a  creature  of  his  day  and  time,  a  man 
subject  to  the  vicissitudes  of  men.  The  prince 
had  given  him  to  wife  his  handmaid,  a  native 
of  the  sea-land,  but  Thaddeus  loved  her  not; 
he  liked  his  mistress  better,  though  neither 
touched  his  heathen  heart,  where  buried,  lay 
the  image  of  a  northern  girl. 

These  Sumerians  were  always  at  war,  either 
defending  their  own  border  against  the  desert 
hordes  or  plundering  their  weaker  neighbors. 
Peace,  in  their  conception,  was  a  one-winged 
angel;  her  other  pinion  was  the  pinion  of  suc 
cessful  battle.  And  Thaddeus  now  led  the 
prince's  cohorts.  The  prince's  arm  had  grown 
too  old.  His  burden  had  fallen  upon  Thad 
deus,  and  Thaddeus  was  proving  himself  a 
strong  and  valiant  son  to  this  foster-mother  of 
the  south. 

And  though  he  was,  in  custom  and  manner, 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  33 

now  quite  a  citizen  of  Sumeria,  his  river-nature 
still  was  in  him.  And  often  when  duty  spared 
it  would  lead  him  through  the  city,  uncon 
cerned,  to  the  Tigris's  reedy  banks,  there  to 
renew  a  kindred  feeling.  Better  than  any  na 
tive  son  he  loved  their  Tigris  with  her  eddying 
currents.  To  him  it  seemed  the  embodiment 
more  of  power  and  more  worthy  of  adoration 
than  their  many  gods. 

This  one-time  slave,  now  devoted  to  Su 
meria,  her  strength  and  her  weakness  he  knew. 
He  had  seen  her  dry  years  and  her  years  of 
plenty.  He  had  flooded  the  water  out  over  her 
land  in  more  abundance.  He  had  seen  her 
temples  started  and  her  shrines  completed.  He 
had  brought  many  captives  to  hasten  her  build 
ing.  Still  the  river  flowed  on,  still  the  moon- 
god  waxed  and  waned,  still  seed-time  and 
harvest  unchanged.  Was  this,  then,  all?  His 
active  soul  was  struggling  anew  with  the  door 
which  held  locked  the  possibilities  of  man.  The 
unsatisfied  feeling  of  his  youth  was  returning. 
The  current  was  calling  him  again. 

The  hosts  of  Sumeria  were  marshaling,  so 
once  again  he  led  them  forth.  This  youth  from 
the  upland  country,  this  adopted  son  led  them 
forth,  with  shields  painted  and  torches  burn- 


34  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

ing;  but  he  came  not  back  again.  The  battle 
field  had  claimed  him,  had  locked  him  in  her 
sodden  folds,  to  sleep  the  sleep  of  ages,  to  mix 
his  ashes  with  the  ashes  of  the  past. 


Thaddeus  we  have  lost,  but  the  soul  we  shall 
find  again.  Why  not?  Do  you  suppose  they 
perish  with  the  body?  Or  do  you  suppose  the 
hand  that  made  them  left  them  here  to  work  a 
day  and  then  to  rest  in  idleness  for  ages?  Ah, 
no!  They  for  some  infinite  purpose  have  been 
fashioned,  and  until  that  purpose  is  complete 
they  will  be  here. 


CHAPTER  III 

A  THOUSAND  thousand  years  had  rolled 
away  and  a  thousand  thousand  souls  had 
toiled  to  raise  the  race  of  man,  when  next  we 
look,  and  see  among  them  one  we  know,  an  Ak 
kadian  boy,  whose  ways  are  unmistakable.  He 
is  of  the  landed  class,  the  class  just  above  the 
freemen,  and  his  name  is  Chinzer. 

These  hasty,  pugnacious,  terrestrial  tenants 
have  now  divided  themselves  distinctly  off  into 
classes.  A  faint  glimpse  of  this  tendency  we 
saw  among  the  Sumerians,  due  to  the  fortunes 
of  war;  here  it  is  more  birth,  and  these  aborigi 
nal  noblemen  are  quite  proud  and  exclusive, 
with  quite  ancestral  lines. 

We  said  a  thousand  thousand  years.  Time 
was  not  very  accurately  measured  in  those  hazy 
days;  probably  about  four  thousand  years  had 
passed.  In  the  interim  had  happened  the  "un 
wary  Adam"  and  the  "renowned  Noah  with 
his  Ark,"  also;  wrhat  Thaddeus  saw  as  a  marshy 

35 


36  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

stretch  of  river-bottom  was  now  a  flourishing 
city,  old  and  established,  beginning  to  decline. 
Queen  of  the  East — yes  more,  proud  Babylon, 
once  queen  of  the  world. 

Chinzer's  home  was  in  Borsippa,  a  village 
on  the  Euphrates  River,  just  to  the  south  of 
this  great  Babylon.  He  was  a  stripling  of  a 
boy,  just  at  that  age  to  comprehend  quite 
easily  the  conditions  about  him,  but  to  question 
nothing,  accepting  everything  to  be  as  it  was. 
He  had  been  many  times  in  the  city  of  Baby 
lon,  with  her  walls  and  brazen  gates,  her 
straight  streets  running  to  the  river,  each  with 
its  brazen  gate;  her  many  sections,  with  dif 
ferent-colored  awnings;  but  it  never  occurred 
to  him  as  being  very  great — in  fact,  he  never 
thought  in  particular  about  it.  He  liked  the 
Pashe  section  best,  because  the  streets  were 
shaded  better  there,  and  fewer  soldiers  were 
loitering  about.  He  had  often  seen  the  Patesi, 
with  his  gorgeous  robes  and  his  fan-bearers, 
and  he  knew  that  S  argon  II  was  king,  and  that 
he  lived  at  Nineveh.  But  kings  and  satraps 
troubled  him  very  little;  he  was  too  busy  with 
his  own  affairs  to  bother  about  such  things. 

Things  were  transpiring  fairly  rapidly,  how 
ever,  in  this  ancient,  prehistoric  metropolis. 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  37 

Wars  of  subjugation  or  revolt  were  every 
where  and  continuous.  The  deposed  Chaldsean 
prince,  from  his  mountain  retreat,  was  watch 
ing  Babylon  with  covetous  eyes.  The  Baby 
lonian  nobility  was  restless  under  the  Assyrian 
yoke.  The  common  rabble  were  eager  for  any 
change.  Mesopotamian  society  was  in  an  un 
settled  state,  but  they  were  used  to  it.  Things 
never  had  been  very  much  settled.  This  was 
kind  of  a  grabbing  time.  Established  dwellers 
in  favored  localities  had  accumulated  consider 
able  wealth,  but  possession  still  constituted 
ownership  among  the  tribes  of  the  earth;  so 
wealth  to  be  had,  and  power  to  get  it,  furnished 
ample  grounds  for  war.  The  land  here  was 
already  gathered  up  into  vast  estates,  and  the 
condition  of  mankind  in  general  was  about 
like  serfage,  with  rapid  oscillations  from  sol 
dier  to  slave. 

So  here,  in  this  ancient,  boasted  civilization 
of  the  East,  the  soul  of  Thaddeus  looked  upon 
things  little  better,  even  worse,  than  they  were 
four  thousand  years  before — saw  with  discour 
agement  the  tardy  progress  of  this  human 
family.  The  great  revolution  of  things,  which 
had  been  established  when  "man's  selection" 
first  supplanted  "nature's  selection,"  had  been 


38  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

diverted;  greed  and  avarice  had  blocked  the 
wheels. 

When  Chinzer  became  eighteen  he  was 
taken  to  Nineveh  to  enter  the  king's  army,  for 
the  king,  as  usual,  was  preparing  for  war,  and 
he  was  to  be  a  mounted  archer  in  the  southern 
troop.  Though  but  a  youth,  he  showed  plainly 
the  characteristics  of  the  class  to  which  he  be 
longed,  the  reduced  Akkadian  land-holders. 
They  were  a  proud,  haughty  people,  very  cou 
rageous,  but  of  a  courage  tinged  with  fierce 
ness  ;  austere  to  inferiors  and  treating  superiors 
with  reserve;  extremely  religious,  but  their  re 
ligion  was  a  sensuous  affair,  filled  with  lascivi 
ous  ceremonies. 

Long-buried  Nineveh,  that  one-time  martial 
mistress  of  the  Tigris,  that  city  of  blood  and 
palaces  which  ruled  the  nations  with  a  rod  of 
iron;  whose  arrows  were  swift  and  terrible,  and 
whose  bow  was  ever  bent;  whose  streets  were 
like  the  shambles  of  the  slaughter,  and  whose 
gates  were  glutted  with  the  spoils  of  war — 
Chinzer  now  saw  her  in  all  her  pagan  glory. 
She  was  much  different  from  exclusive  Baby 
lon,  much  larger,  with  higher  walls. 

Outside  her  eastern  gate  the  army  was  en 
camped,  and  such  a  concourse  of  foreign  rab- 


Souls  of  the  Infinite:    :  :;vi  :.£9 

ble!  Chinzer  looked  on  them  in  wonder.  Here 
were  wild,  skin-girded  Scythians  from  the 
north,  marshaled  beside  fierce,  yellow-faced 
Tartars  from  the  plains;  gaudy-colored  Hit- 
tites  from  Syria ;  Medes  and  Elamites  from  the 
eastern  mountains;  Kimmerian  warriors  from 
the  northern  sea,  and  around  them  everywhere 
the  brawling  Assyrian  soldier ;  banners  stream 
ing  above  phalanx  of  spears  and  prancing 
chargers;  guards  hurrying  to  and  fro  amid 
shouting  officers. 

Nineveh,  with  her  hirelings,  was  going  to 
battle;  a  martial  host,  which  represented  not 
the  zeal  of  patriotic  sons,  but  the  rampant  de 
sire  for  plunder — soldiers  who  delighted  in 
war  for  itself  alone.  They  were  trained  fight 
ers,  however,  tried  with  many  battles,  and  their 
king  was  leading  them  forth  to  spoil. 

Westward,  he  led  them  forth.  Westward, 
the  army  toiled;  two  hundred  thousand  men 
dragging  its  spiked  shadow  across  the  arid 
plain. 

Down  into  Palistena  they  were  going,  to 
smite  the  rebellious  Jew.  The  gods  of  Meso 
potamia,  abundantly  propitiated  with  sacrifice 
and  burnt-offerings,  were  aiding  them  in  the 
attack.  The  gods  of  Judea,  also  persuaded  by 


Souls  vf  the  Infinite 


Westward  the  army  toiled 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  41 

the  smell  of  roasted  meats,  were  assisting,  with 
equal  zeal,  the  Hebrews  in  their  defense.  But 
on  this  occasion,  for  some  unaccountable  rea 
son — possibly  the  meats  were  not  good,  or  the 
flavorings  were  poor,  or  the  cooking  was  un 
hygienic — the  Hebrew  gods  forsook  the  unwar- 
like  Children  of  Israel;  so  they  were  put  to 
the  sword,  their  children  sent  into  slavery,  and 
their  land  left  wasted  and  desolate.  Assyria, 
through  divine  indulgence,  was  again  victori 
ous  and  triumphant,  Nineveh  again  meted 
out  her  destructive  assimilation. 

Two  years  Chinzer  spent  wTith  the  army  in 
Judea,  chastising  the  chosen  faithful.  This  was 
when  the  mournful  loss  of  the  "Ten  Tribes" 
was  accomplished. 

As  soon  as  this  campaign  of  devastation  was 
completed,  and  the  booty  safely  carried  to 
Nineveh,  the  King  led  his  army  to  ravish  the 
Elamites,  whose  country  was  just  east  of 
Kaldi.  But  these  people  were  of  the  same 
fighting,  rapine  stock  as  the  Assyrians,  and 
while  the  King  was  boating  his  marauders 
down  the  Euphrates — although  the  gods  had 
been  bountifully  conciliated — they  flanked 
across  overland  and  smote  him  in  the  rear. 
Such  havoc  did  they  raise  with  his  baggage  and 


42  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

his  reinforcements  that  the  King  was  glad  to 
retreat. 

These  mountain  people  later  aided  in  bring 
ing  about  the  complete  destruction  of  his  king 
dom,  and  administered,  in  after  years,  to  war 
like  Nineveh  the  annihilating  subjugation 
which  she  had  so  long  been  meting  out  to  the 
weaker  nations  about  her. 

Now,  when  King  Sennacherib  had  obtained 
an  ample  sufficiency  of  the  sting  of  the  Elam- 
ites,  he  turned  about  him  for  some  less  fortified 
people  to  beset.  The  masses  which  he  held 
under  him  clamored  for  activity,  and,  unless  he 
gave  them  war,  his  army,  and  consequently  his 
kingdom,  would  fall  to  pieces.  So  he  decided 
to  invade  Arabia.  Everything  else  available 
was  already  despoiled  to  about  the  last  degree, 
and,  besides,  Arabia  had  incurred  his  enmity. 
So  he  again  marshaled  his  mighty  host — spear 
men  and  bowmen,  a  countless  number,  thirst 
ing  for  the  spoil — and  with  blaring  trumpets 
and  streaming  banners  led  them  down  into 
Arabia. 

These  Arabs,  while  not  animated  with  the 
fighting  spirit  of  the  Elamites,  were  a  more 
dangerous  foe  for  such  an  army.  They  were 
too  wild  and  too  averse  to  labor.  They  would 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  43 

not  build  cities  nor  plant  vineyards  sufficient 
to  furnish  spoils  for  such  a  host.  When  the 
wily  Arab  was  on  his  horse,  and  his  blanket 
wrapped  about  him,  his  hut  was  empty. 

They  were  such  a  thieving  set  themselves 
that  it  was  folly  for  any  of  them  to  accumulate 
much ;  and  so  accustomed  was  each  to  pilfering 
neighbors  that  whenever  the  Arab  left  his 
house  he  always  took  all  his  belongings  with 
him. 

Their  only  wealth  being  horses,  these  they 
quickly  drove  away,  and  the  fleet  Arab  was  far 
out  of  sight,  leaving  only  vacant,  deserted  huts 
for  the  slow,  plodding  Assyrian  army  to  ravish. 
They  were  robbers,  true,  these  brigands  of  the 
Assyrian  king,  but  they  were  no  match  for  the 
thieving  Arab,  who  even  stole  from  the  army 
that  had  come  to  plunder  him. 

The  monarch  took  a  number  of  their  wooden 
gods,  but  these  the  Arabs  probably  left  to  their 
own  divine  protection.*  He  also  took  captive 
their  pretty  queen,  and  sent  her  back  to  Nine 
veh,  with  a  detachment  of  his  mounted  archers 
for  a  guard.  The  rest  of  his  mighty  host  wrere 
led  off  into  the  desert  by  the  vanishing  foe, 
where  they  perished. 

*"Hist.  Babylonia  and  Assyria,"  Hugo  Winckler. 


44?  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

Is  it  possible,  that  there  may  be  any  truth 
for  us  in  these  crude  pantomimes  of  human 
activity  that  were  being  played  with  such  earn 
estness  here,  while  yet  the  stage  was  dark  and 
curtained?  Do  you  imagine  what  caused  these 
turbulent  masses  to  rush  blindly  hither  and 
thither,  with  such  eagerness  for  battle  ?  What 
kept  those  kings,  at  the  cost  of  life  and  king 
dom,  trailing  their  forces  incessantly  backward 
and  forward  across  the  face  of  Asia?  It  was 
not  all  for  spoils. 

If  we  look  deeper  we  can  see  another  motive 
force,  a  remnant  of  which  is  still  firmly  planted 
in  our  nature.  Though  unidentified,  it  was  the 
baser  human  interpretation  of  the  universal  de 
sire  for  activity  which  they  felt — the  demand 
for  motion,  which  runs  through  every  atom  of 
organic  matter.  That  human  desire  for  the 
new,  and  the  unattained,  when  analyzed,  is 
mainly  the  demand  for  motion.  Do  we  not  see 
it  in  the  great  general  weeping  for  more 
worlds  to  conquer;  in  the  powerful  magnate 
who,  with  tottering  steps,  is  still  grasping  for 
power;  in  the  greedy  capitalist's  frenzied  ef 
forts  for  more  gold?  It  is  not  wholly  for  the 
possession  of  these  things,  for  they  each  have 
enough  and  to  spare.  It  is  the  passion  for  ac- 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  45 

tion  uncontrolled.  It  becomes  all-absorbing, 
rooting  out  the  finer  qualities  of  man's  nature, 
blighting  his  ability  to  appreciate  the  real  ob 
ject  of  living. 

One  of  the  guards  for  the  Arab  queen  was 
Chinzer,  as  wild  as  an  Arab  himself.  His  boy 
hood  days  had  seen  nothing  but  turmoil  and 
strife.  He  was  thirty-one  now,  and  had  been 
for  thirteen  continuous  years  a  warrior  hired  to 
the  king.  For  thirteen  years  he  had  carried  the 
soul  of  Thaddeus  over  these  wreck-strewn 
marches  and  into  these  pillaging  depredations. 
Chinzer,  however,  recognized  them  not  as  such ; 
he  was  but  one  of  the  mass,  crowded  backward 
by  environment,  hemmed  in  by  custom,  com 
pelled  by  circumstances. 

Chinzer,  we  cannot  say  much  for  you;  your 
pugnacity  has  exceeded  its  utility.  If  it  were 
not  for  the  fact  that  you  carried  the  soul  of 
Thaddeus  within  your  bosom  we  would  be 
tempted  to  leave  you  out  of  the  picture. 
Combativeness  and  the  will  to  attract  were 
planted  in  man's  nature  for  a  purpose,  but  here 
it  is  being  perverted,  enslaved  to  brutish  greedi 
ness.  Thirty-one  years  have  you  been  the  cus 
todian  of  a  human  soul,  what  have  you  to  show 
for  it  ?  A  scarred  and  dented  shield  and  a  well- 


46  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

worn  cutlass?  These  are  not  the  hope  of  mor 
tals.  You  were  also  given  some  "talents"; 
what  have  you  done  with  them,  buried  them  or 
dissipated  them?  For  thirteen  years  has  a 
soldier's  better  self  been  calling  to  you,  for 
thirteen  years  has  human  inspiration  and  feel 
ing  been  kept  hidden  beneath  your  trooper's 
garb.  How  tediously  slow  to  understand  is 
the  nature  of  man. 

As  Chinzer  followed  this  impatient  handful 
of  guards  back  across  the  desert  he  reflected. 
There  was  little  else  he  could  do.  These  were 
the  most  befitting  days  for  the  soul  to  whisper, 
to  try  and  show  the  evil  of  these  things  men 
did. 

So  he  began  to  be  dissatisfied  with  this 
marauding  warfare — began  to  dislike  his  riot 
ous  career. 

"This  is  a  dogged  life,"  thought  he  to  him 
self,  "this  glorious  civilization  of  ours;  it  is 
worse  than  the  heathen." 

His  idle  cutlass  heavy  at  his  girdle  hung 
and  his  buckler  chafed  his  shoulder  as  he  rode. 
He  was  moody,  pursued  with  discontent,  until 
by  chance  it  happened  he  observed  the  little 
queen,  and  then  his  thoughts  went  otherwise. 
For  she  was  very  pretty,  and  the  soul  of 


Souls  of  the  Infinite 


47 


That  night  as  Chinzer  stood  his  guard  alone 


48  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

Thaddeus  had  always  a  fondness  for  pretty 
women. 

She  looked  very  sad  to  him.  Her  tears  were 
falling,  and  her  eyes,  so  like  big,  dark  windows, 
were  drooping  now.  Chinzer  wanted  to  com 
fort  her,  but  he  knew  not  how.  He  had  been 
so  little  among  women,  for  in  Assyria  the 
women  were  kept  secluded,  and  he  knew  not 
what  to  say.  Poor  captive  thing,  whenever  she 
looked  at  him  he  could  feel  something  come 
throbbing  in  his  breast,  for  whether  free  or 
captive  she  was  a  queen.  He  told  her,  in  Ara 
bic,  not  to  cry  so,  that  the  king  mayhap  would 
be  kind  to  her.  But  she  answered  nothing,  but 
only  sobbed  and  drooped  her  head. 

That  night,  when  Chinzer  stood  his  guard 
alone  above  the  sleeping  caravan,  his  soul  was 
heavy  and  his  thoughts  were  of  the  day.  The 
little  queen  was  silent,  but  he  could  see  the 
heaving  of  her  bosom  and  would  have  spoken 
again  to  cheer  her,  but  was  afraid. 

And  then  she  called  him  to  her.  This  was 
the  first  time  she  had  spoken,  and  she  used  his 
own  Assyrian  tongue.  She  told  him  how  her 
heart  was  broken,  how  she  could  never  live 
within  walls  confined,  like  the  Assyrian  women ; 
told  him  of  her  desert  free,  and  pressed  him 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  49 

long  to  flee  away  with  her  from  death  to  life 
and  liberty.  Her  little  bosom  trembled  with 
the  sobs  it  gave,  and  he  could  see  the  tear-drops 
to  her  lashes  clinging. 

The  soul  of  Thaddeus  stirred  strong  within 
him, — it  would  have  gone  without  a  second's 
waiting, — and  struggled  hard  to  show  that 
right  was  right  to  do,  though  right  should 
break  a  law. 

Harsh,  martial  mandates  heavy  o'er  this 
bivouac  hung,  and  scattered  round  lay  sym 
bols  of  the  weight  of  Nineveh.  This  beaten 
trail  was  close  with  laws  and  orders  pressed; 
beyond  it  led  to  binding  laws  the  same.  The 
south  away  stretched  wide  and  free,  with  care 
less  nights  and  days. 

The  desert  darkness  bore  the  weeping  of 
Sheba's  sister  queen.  The  silent  air  kept  sigh 
ing  her  entreaty:  "Stern  Nineveh  is  distant. 
There  are  ways  where  none  can  follow.  There 
is  safety  in  this  mantle  of  the  night."  An 
Assyrian  guardsman  stood  forbidding,  but  a 
soldier's  heart  was  listening.  And  when  the 
morning  sunbeams  came  twinkling  across  the 
desert  sands  and  roused  the  slumbering  cara 
van,  they  were  not  there. 


CHAPTER  IV 

TWO-HUNDRED-ODD  years  after  the  close  of 
our  Assyrian  picture,  in  what  was  once  the 
dim  and  hazy  dawn  of  history,  but  which  now 
is  more  distinctly  seen,  there  was  a  mighty 
gathering  together  of  the  sons  of  men.  The 
place  was  Critalla,  in  Cappadocia,  and  the  man 
who  swayed  the  scepter  was  Xerxes,  a  Persian 
monarch,  who,  while  not  the  greatest,  was  still 
the  mightiest  ruler  the  world  had  thus  far 
known.  It  had  taken  four  years  for  this  legion 
to  gather,  four  years  since  his  messengers  had 
sped  to  every  province  of  his  vast  domain,  and 
now  were  marshaled  here  beneath  the  Persian 
banner  the  standards  of  well-nigh  every  na 
tion — excepting  Greece — and  the  gathering 
was  for  her. 

We  said  from  well-nigh  every  nation — from 
sun-scorched  India  across  to  Asia  Minor,  from 
Egypt  and  from  Africa  had  levies  come  to 
swell  the  Persian  host — but  from  Arabia  none. 
No  foreign  levies  had  been  wrung  from  her,  be 
cause  these  monarchs  could  never  bend  her 

50 


Souls  of  the  Infinite 


51 


And  there  were  Nejd  horses  there  in  numbers 


52  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

stubborn  neck  beneath  their  servile  yoke. 
True,  for  hire  there  were  a  few  small  squads 
of  camel-drivers  there,  but  from  the  great  wide 
Nejd  plain,  or  from  Jebel  Shammar,  there  was 
not  a  soldier.  Those  warriors  did  not  fight  for 
hire.  But  there  were  caravans  of  Kedar  mer 
chants  there,  come  up  with  goods  to  sell,  and 
there  were  Nejd  horses  there  in  numbers. 

Among  one  company  of  these  desert  sons 
who  had  come  up  with  horses  fleet  to  trade  for 
Persian  gold  there  was  a  prince,  from  Nejd, 
the  guider  of  the  caravan.  And  as  he  brought 
his  dusty  company  to  halt  there  was  a  look 
about  him  and  an  action  which  seemed  famil 
iar.  His  name  was  Rashid,  son  of  Obar;  still, 
scarcely  would  you  have  imagined  that  beneath 
his  goat-hair  mantle  stirred  a  soul  akin  to 
Chinzer. 

Two  hundred  years  of  desert  life  had  fash 
ioned  a  very  different  man  from  that  we  lost. 
Besides,  this  Arab  was  of  royal  blood,  an  intru 
sion  quite  unwelcome,  for  we  deal  but  with  the 
race  of  men — the  general — the  fashioning  of 
nature — and  take  not  to  account  such  special 
birth  or  artificial  privilege. 

But  this  Rashid  did  not  act  the  part  of  east 
ern  lordly  prince.  There  was  no  bowing  and 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  53 

saluting  as  he  passed  by,  no  dusky  slaves  were 
clustering  round  to  fan  him,  no  hampering  of 
his  stride  with  fringe  and  trappings.  Son  of 
the  desert,  he  would  scorn  such  things.  In  Ke- 
dar  every  man  was  born  a  prince,  a  son  of  the 
Almighty.  And  Rashid,  unreserved,  would 
grasp  the  hand  of  any  member  of  his  caravan, 
would  share  his  bed  or  share  his  board,  or  in  a 
private  brawl  would  meet  him  hand  to  hand  on 
equal  grounds. 

Such  was  the  life  he  led  and  such  the  land 
from  whence  he  came.  No  pampering  to  dis 
dainful  royalty,  no  proud  nobility  flaunting 
with  lordly  rank  and  title,  but  only  men.  No 
laws  to  crush  the  weak  and  fortify  the  strong; 
no  grinding  tax  to  gorge  the  overflowing  treas 
uries  of  the  few;  no  doors  that  barred  a  man, 
but  opened  for  a  title.  A  man  wras  there  a  man, 
and  to  kill  him  was  a  forfeit  of  ten  camels,  no 
matter  who  his  father  may  have  been.  And 
women  there  were  cherished  and  beloved,  not 
like  dumb  animals  confined.*  They  graced  the 
daily  walks  of  men  and  lent  their  counsel  and 
advice,  and  cheered  their  sons  on  stricken  fields 
where  foreign  f oemen  strove  to  break  the  Arab 

*This  was  before  Mohammed  cast  his  blighting  shadow 
upon  the  Arabian  women. 


54?  fiouls  of  the  Infinite 

neck.  Such  were  their  homely  virtues,  but  to 
enjoy  these  sacred  privileges  the  desert  bare 
had  come  to  be  their  only  habitat.  The  gar 
den  spots  had  all  been  vanquished  by  the 
strong. 

The  soul  of  Thaddeus  had  found  sweet 
draughts  for  which  it  thirsted  upon  that  dry 
and  arid  plain.  The  souls  that  mingled  in  that 
desert  air  had  brought  forth  a  race  of  men  su 
perior,  by  nature's  measurements,  to  any  of 
these  nobles,  lords,  or  kings.  A  race  so  differ 
ent  from  this  soldier  type  about  us,  two  hun 
dred  years  of  such  had  come  and  gone.  Tower 
ing  monarchies  they  had  built,  and  kingdoms 
fair  in  random  ruin  laid;  but  what  had  it  done 
for  them?  They  were  positively  worse,  more 
servile,  than  when  Chinzer  left  them. 

Do  we  wonder,  then,  at  the  manner  of  this 
Arab  son,  or  at  the  feeling  which  he  harbored 
in  his  breast?  Rashid,  though  born  a  prince, 
was  none  the  less  a  man,  and  now  with  eyes  of 
wonder  he  surveyed  this  mighty  host  of  Per 
sia's,  the  like  of  which  might  not  gather  once 
in  many  epochs.  Here  were  a  million  seven 
hundred  thousand  men-at-arms,  two  hundred 
thousand  slaves  and  attendants,  eighty  thou 
sand  horses,  besides  camels  and  chariots,  the 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  55 

greatest  army  Asia  ever  produced.  A  prodigi 
ous  multitude  of  all  types,  from  the  war- 
painted  savage,  with  his  club,  to  the  Persian 
and  Assyrian  soldiers,  who  were  partly  civil 
ized  and  armed  writh  the  best  weapons  of  their 
time.  These  latter  were  paid,  but  the  great 
bulk  of  the  army  served  without  pay,  were  im 
pressed  soldiers,  forced  levies  from  the  various 
subjugated  provinces,  who  fought  or  marched 
under  the  Persian  lash. 

Rashid  walked  about  among  the  camps, 
among  the  chariots  and  horsemen.  There 
seemed  for  him  a  strange  enticement  about  this 
marshaling  of  warriors.  The  days  slipped  by, 
his  horses  all  were  sold,  and  horsemen  chafing 
to  return,  but  still  he  lingered.  He  wandered 
in  among  the  mounted  archers;  there  was  a 
silent  beckoning  about  their  arms,  their  straps 
and  harness.  He  hefted  a  trooper's  shield. 
How  easily  did  he  slip  it  on  his  shoulder!  And 
how  he  fondled  in  his  hand  their  short  Chal- 
daean  cutlass!  Does  the  soul  remember,  or  do 
such  peculiar  things  just  happen?  But, 
strangest  thing  of  all,  Rashid  enlisted,  hired 
out  to  fight,  to  be  a  brother  to  those  marauding 
ruffians. 

Now  it  was  not  the  soul  that  prompted  this 


56  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

enlistment.  The  soul  protested  bitterly,  but 
still  he  did  it.  It  simply  shows  that  there  is  no 
accounting  for  the  ways  of  men;  there  is  a  per 
versity  in  their  nature  which  shows  up  anon 
and  gives  to  them  an  inclination  to  revert.  He 
straightway  went  to  Otaspes,  the  Assyrian 
general,  made  known  his  rank  and  his  ability, 
and  Otaspes  made  him  an  attendant  of  his 
horse. 

This  now  was  autumn,  and  the  army  broke 
its  camp  at  Critalla  and  marched  from  thence 
to  Sardis  on  the  Hermus,  for  Xerxes  had  Phoe 
nician  and  Egyptian  architects  to  span  a  bridge 
across  the  Hellespont,  so  that  he  might  lead 
his  horde  of  soldiers  into  Greece.  But  when  he 
had  his  hosts  made  ready,  and  was  prepared  to 
march  with  much  array  across  from  Sardis,  the 
August  winds  tossed  up  the  Hellespont  and 
washed  away  the  bridge. 

Now,  this  made  Xerxes  very  wroth.  He  was 
indeed  a  mighty  monarch,  and  for  this  mean 
Hellespont  to  thus  thwart  his  purpose,  threw 
him  in  a  rage.  He  immediately  dispatched 
vassals  to  take  the  architects  who  built  the 
bridge,  and  other  vassals  with  shackles  to  bind 
the  Hellespont  and  scourge  it  with  the  lash, 
and  bade  them  also  brand  it  with  hot  branding- 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  57 

irons,  and  charged  those  who  flogged  the 
waters  to  utter  these  impious  words:*  "Thou 
bitter  water!  Thy  master  inflicts  this  punish 
ment  upon  thee,  because  thou  hast  injured  him, 
although  thou  hadst  not  suffered  any  harm 
from  him.  And  King  Xerxes  will  cross  over 
thee  whether  thou  wilt  or  not.  It  is  with  jus 
tice  that  no  man  sacrifice  to  thee,  because  thou 
art  both  a  deceitful  and  a  briny  river." 

We  can  imagine,  with  amusement,  to  what 
extent  the  briny  Hellespont  was  afflicted  with 
the  chastisement,  or  how  quickly  she  soused 
out  the  branding-irons.  But  with  the  poor, 
guiltless  architects  it  was  very  different.  They 
were  brought,  trembling,  before  the  king.  Men 
who,  no  doubt,  were  far  the  intellectual  supe 
riors  of  the  bigoted  judge  into  whose  hands 
their  fate  was  cast.  They  were  certainly  enter 
prising  barbarians  of  no  small  ability,  to  have 
been  able  to  bridge  the  surging  Hellespont 
with  such  means  and  resources  as  were  known 
in  that  day.  But  these  things  weighed  for 
nothing  with  their  kingly  judge.  They  were 
condemned  to  death. 

The  discomfited  king  went  into  quarters  then 
at  Sardis,  while  a  new  bridge  was  being  built, 
'Herodotus,  ix,  16. 


58  Souls  of  the  Infinite. 

and  so  it  happened  that  our  errant  Arab  spent 
his  first  winter  amid  camp  confines. 

But  distinctions  of  rank  and  military  subor 
dinations  sat  very  loosely  upon  his  shoulders. 
Inconsistency — he  had  joined;  still,  he  did  not 
like  these  things.  The  servile  obeisance  of  the 
vassal  soldier  was  to  him  a  thing  of  baseness, 
and  the  haughty  arrogance  of  the  Persian  no 
bles  would  make  his  swarthy  brow  to  kindle. 
Everywhere  he  mingled,  whether  among 
Egyptians  or  Assyrians,  his  unbroken  spirit 
shed  an  influence  of  intolerance,  of  resentment. 
So,  after  all,  perhaps  it  was  not  the  perversity 
of  man,  but  the  hand  within  the  shadows,  which 
had  scattered  such  as  he  among  these  soldiers. 

Spring  came  on,  and  with  the  first  warm 
days  the  army  was  again  prepared  to  cross, 
the  bridges  having  been  rebuilt.  This  must 
have  been  an  imposing  sight — there  in  the 
murky  morning  of  history,  this  warlike  host, 
one  of  the  largest  the  world  had  ever  seen, 
creeping  its  pontooned  way  from  Asia  into 
Europe. 

First,  the  bridge  was  strewn  with  myrtle 
branches  and  perfumed  with  incense;  then,  just 
as  the  sun  was  rising,  Xerxes  offered  up  a 
prayer  and  poured  a  libation  into  the  sea;  also, 


Souls  of  tlte  Infinite  59 

he  threw  in  a  golden  bowl  and  a  Persian  sword. 
Herodotus  says  he  never  could  ascertain  for  a 
certainty  whether  he  did  this  latter  for  an  offer 
ing  to  the  sun,  or  in  repentance  for  having 
scourged  the  sea.  Then,  just  as  the  first  sun's 
rays  kissed  the  parapets  of  the  bridge,  the 
crossing  began. 

Foremost,  leading  the  van,  were  his  picked 
soldiers,  the  ten  thousand  Persians  all  wearing 
crowns  and  all  with  silver  ferrules  upon  their 
spears.  Then  followed  an  immense  body  of 
vassal  troops,  with  the  Persian  lash  singing 
among  their  naked  legs,  to  lend  them  courage. 
Then  the  horsemen,  with  purple  housings,  and 
streamers  fluttering  from  their  bridles.  Next 
came  the  sacred  chariot  of  Jupiter,  drawn  by 
eight  white  Nisean  horses  with  gorgeous  tapes 
try,  and  gilded  harness  flashing  in  the  sun. 
Then  came  the  king,  adorned  with  gold,  in  his 
chariot  of  silver,  followed  by  a  thousand  of  his 
bravest  Persian  soldiers,  all  with  golden  ap 
ples  for  ferrules  upon  their  spears,  and  a  thou 
sand  of  his  bravest  horsemen.  Behind  these 
came  twenty  thousand  foot  and  horse;  then, 
with  a  space  left  to  separate  them  from  the 
king's  troops,  the  throng  of  all  nations  promis 
cuous,  with  the  Persian  lash  again  singing  and 


60  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

snapping.  Such  a  host!  For  seven  days  and 
nights  continuously  the  bridge  creaked  and 
groaned  beneath  the  load. 

What  was  the  true  meaning  of  this  massive 
movement?  Was  there  some  hidden  motive 
animating  the  pulse-beats  of  this  mighty 
throng — this  more  than  a  million  souls  all 
crowding  westward?  Was  there  some  super 
human  law  impelling  this  surging  flood?  Some 
universal  purpose  permitting  this  action  to  be? 
The  soul  of  Thaddeus  felt  no  such  tide. 

This  was  simply  a  stupendous  demonstration 
of  the  ambitious  selfishness  of  one  man  and  his 
royal  associates.  The  misguiding,  for  the  gain 
of  a  few,  of  the  restless  power  in  the  unthinking 
masses — which  is  always  a  danger,  and  which 
will  always  be  misguided  so  long  as  there  is 
such  a  power.  How  often  since  has  this  lesson 
been  read  to  mankind  in  sorrow!  Civilization 
is  not  a  thing  which  can  be  built  up  for  the  en 
joyment  of  a  privileged  class.  It  must  include 
the  race,  else  is  its  damnation  certain.  To  ad 
vance,  we  must  advance  the  whole.  The  call  of 
destiny  is  to  the  race,  and  whenever  the  ulti 
mate  Utopia  is  reached,  it  will  be  reached  as 
one  family.  There  will  be  neither  Jew  nor 
Greek,  bound  nor  free. 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  61 

Well,  this  mixture  of  pomp  and  pagan 
ism,  this  blunder  of  an  all-wise  providence, 
went  down  into  Greece.  Of  the  fortunes  of 
the  king  you  already  know,  but  of  the  men 
there  is  something  yet  to  tell.  One  among  the 
many  was  our  errant  Arab,  now  a  true  soldier 
of  fortune.  The  vengeance  of  no  trampled 
shrine  had  bent  his  bow,  nor  was  his  bosom  kin 
dled  with  the  wrongs  of  any  country.  He  was 
simply  a  pilgrim  of  the  goddess,  owning  allegi 
ance  to  the  Persians  only  as  a  matter  of  expe 
diency,  and  terminating  his  respect  for  their 
laws  directly  with  their  possibility  of  being 
enforced.  If  his  chance  was  good,  a  comely 
damsel  or  a  golden  prize  outweighed  the  wrath 
of  Xerxes  or  his  kingdom. 

This  promiscuous  host  of  Asia's  was  entering 
now  a  country  where  knowledge  was  far  ad 
vanced,  where  men  searched  after  truth,  where 
wisdom  was  prized  above  riches,  and  where 
they  spoke  of  "honor" — a  thing  which  could 
not  be  measured  in  golden  shekels.  The  civili 
zation  of  Greece  spread  out  about  them;  they 
gazed  on  it,  but  gazed  like  the  unthinking  ox. 
The  voice  which  called  to  them,  from  the  lives 
of  these  intrepid  men,  from  their  freeborn  cus 
toms,  from  every  rock  and  rivulet  of  their 


62  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

rugged  country,  no  man  heard — or,  hearing, 
could  not  understand. 

Rashid  looked  on  with  his  fellow  invaders, 
but  saw  more  than  they.  He  wondered  at  the 
peculiar  customs  these  people  observed.  They 
crowned  their  heroes  with  leaves  of  the  wild- 
olive  tree,  and  they  esteemed  these  crowns  of 
rarest  value,  though  the  tree  was  very  plentiful. 
The  human  images  they  made  in  stone  and 
bronze — the  most  wonderfully  beautiful — filled 
him  with  admiration.  These  Greeks  seemed  to 
live  for  many  things  besides  feasting  and  fine 
raiment. 

The  soul  of  Thaddeus  saw  companions  here, 
men  who  cherished  the  beautiful  and  the  good; 
men  who  had  turned  their  attention  from  sor 
did  baseness  to  nobler  things,  and  who  fought, 
not  for  gold  or  greedy  kings,  but  for  principles 
of  right,  for  truths  which  they  had  found.  It 
stirred  so  mightily  within  this  Arab's  bosom 
that,  when  their  city  was  burned  and  the  un 
daunted  Greeks  betook  themselves  to  their 
ships,  he  went  wandering  about  the  ruins,  a 
deep  yearning  in  him  to  know  the  strange 
things  for  which  these  Grecians  lived. 

The  pursuing  army  marched  on  to  the  sea 
shore,  but  Rashid  remained  with  his  general  at 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  63 

Thebes,  for  the  Thebans  were  allies  of  the  Per 
sians.  Here  he  made  more  earnest  effort  to 
understand  this  strange  manner  of  living.  He 
could  feel  a  yearning  within  him  for  things 
which  he  knew  not  of.  But  he  had  that  thirst 
which  is  the  first  great  gain. 

So  much  of  his  time  did  he  spend  inquiring 
after  these  things,  that  the  horse-boys  of 
Otaspes  were  left  to  their  idleness,  and  slept 
within  their  tents  while  many  a  noble  charger 
neighed  unattended  in  his  stall.  But  Raschid 
was  busy,  very  busy.  His  soul  was  groping 
for  light,  and,  besides  this,  in  his  inquiring 
search  he  had  become  acquainted  with  a  Gre 
cian  girl,  lone,  the  wife  of  Attagimus,  the  The- 
ban  at  whose  house  he  and  his  general  had 
often  supped,  and  something  unbidden  had 
sprung  up  in  his  heart.  Nor  was  it  a  cold  Gre 
cian  something  like  their  marble  statues,  but  a 
warm  Arabian  kindling,  and  like  the  morning 
of  their  southern  sun.  It  kept  continually 
turning  him  toward  this  Theban  garden,  or 
forming  a  thousand  pretexts  for  messages  to 
Attagimus.  Many  fair  women  he  had  seen, 
both  Greek  and  barbarian,  but  this  was  an  un 
usual  feeling.  It  grew,  in  spite  of  obstacles, 
with  every  thought. 


64  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

After  the  battle  of  Salamis,  Xerxes  started 
with  his  army  for  Thessalia.  The  courageous 
Greeks  had  been  victorious,  and  Rashid,  in  his 
heart,  was  glad.  But  he  had  short  opportunity 
to  rejoice,  for  he  was  smitten  sorely  with  the 
fever,  and  was  soon  about  to  perish.  Otaspes 
was  indeed  sorry.  He  was  loth  to  lose  him, 
because  he  was  an  excellent  horseman  and  a 
manly  fellow,  and  despite  his  lawless  hand, 
there  was  a  hidden  nobleness  about  his  heart, 
for  which  Otaspes  had  formed  a  friendship. 
But  the  army  must  be  moved,  so  he  appointed 
a  slave  to  attend  his  sickness,  and  left  him  with 
their  ally,  Attagimus,  at  Thebes. 

Thousands  of  Rashid's  fellow-soldiers  had 
fallen  by  this  same  fever,  more  than  the  Greeks 
had  slain ;  but  destiny  had  appointed  different 
ly  for  him,  so  after  many  days  of  weariness 
he  began  to  mend.  His  pallet  then  the  Theban 
moved,  from  out  the  camp,  to  his  own  garden. 
And,  as  Rashid  lay  beneath  its  shade,  in  half 
delirium,  his  eyes  would  wander  o'er  its  beauty. 

It  was  like  a  wild  grove  surrounded  by  a 
wall,  and  on  each  side  there  was  a  colonnade 
supported  by  marble  pillars.  The  trees  within 
were  planted  so  closely  that  the  foliage  inter 
mingled,  and  the  fluttering  of  the  leaves  caused 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  65 

wavy  gleams  of  sunbeams  to  travel  o'er  his  bed. 
Beside  the  trees,  the  woodbine  and  the  ivy 
grew.  The  woodbine  was  in  blossom,  and 
formed  crowns  upon  the  branches  with  its  deli 
cate  foliage,  while  the  ivy  mantled  the  brown 
tree-trunks  with  glossy  green.  Beneath,  dis 
played  their  various  hues,  the  narcissus  and  the 
rose,  and  the  violet  with  its  blue  like  the  calm 
sea. 

Here,  with  these  surroundings,  which  were 
better  far  than  leach  or  apotheca,  our  errant 
soldier  grew  better  fast.  But  with  the  abate 
ment  of  his  body  fever  returned  that  throbbing 
feeling  in  his  bosom,  and  it  became  another 
fever.  lone  would  daily  come  to  see  him,  to 
mark  the  slave's  attendance,  and  with  each 
visit,  or  each  gentle  touch,  this  other  fever  in 
his  bosom  waxed  and  burned. 

The  summer  days  sped  sweetly  o'er  the  gar 
den,  their  zephyrs  whispering  to  the  trees. 
They  had  cooled  his  parching  malady.  Otaspes 
awaited  him  in  Thessaly,  for  now  the  king  had 
gone  to  Asia.  Still  he  did  not  go,  but  illness 
feigned ;  and  he  was  sick,  but  with  another  ail 
ment — something  the  zephyrs  could  not  cool. 
His  limbs  were  strong  again,  yet  to  his  pallet 
still  he  kept  by  day;  we  would  not  say  but  that 


66  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

he  walked  about  when  no  one  saw.  And,  like  a 
truant  boy,  he  would  encourage  carelessness  in 
his  slave,  just  to  hear  this  Greek  girl  chafe  and 
fret  about  him, 

But  something  here  was  growing  almost  out 
of  bounds.  He  wrongly  promised  every  day 
that  he  would  tell  her,  but  each  time  opportu 
nity  or  courage  failed,  which  only  drove  this 
fever  in  his  bosom  worse,  for  it  no  longer  was 
a  quiet,  passive  love,  content  to  look  and  to 
adore,  but  had  become  an  all-absorbing  emo 
tion,  an  impetuous  passion  to  possess. 

lone  never  guessed,  or  at  least  we  think  she 
never  guessed,  the  ardent  power  that  was  being 
kindled  here.  That  she  was  kindling  here,  for 
there  was  something  more  than  nurse's  care, 
prompting  her  kind  attention.  lone  loved  this 
Arab  prince,  and  once  as  she  smoothed  his  ruf 
fled  pillow,  for  the  wayward  slave  was  gone 
again,  she  lifted  from  his  brow  a  raven  lock  and 
bent  and  kissed  him.  Alas!  the  bounds  to  all 
his  smoldering  passion  like  stubble  fell.  Why 
did  she  do  it — betray  herself,  undo  her  lord's 
command,  forswear  her  sacred  vow?  Why  did 
she!  Because  she  could  not  help  it,  for  this 
was  Phillis  standing  here,  although  her  name 
was  lone,  and  she  was  a  Greek. 


Sauls  of  the  Infinite  67 

"The  wind  bloweth  whithersoever  it  listeth," 
and  it  is  hardly  easier  to  bind  affections.  What 
did  the  soul  of  Phillis  know  of  Grecian  vows? 
Had  not  this  love  four  thousand  years  of  prior 
claim?  And  was  it  wrong  if  Rashid  strove  to 
overstep  the  law  of  Greece?  Might  there  not 
be  a  higher  law?  What  if  he  lingered  long, 
and  often,  from  his  heart  in  earnest,  besought 
lone  to  leave  her  thoughtless  lord?  But  she 
would  not.  Because  the  soul  of  Phillis,  being 
it  was  a  woman's  soul,  was  more  by  law  re 
stricted,  and  had  not  grown  with  equal  pace. 

The  war  was  finished,  and  what  was  left  of 
the  barbarians,  a  shattered  band,  went  scatter 
ing  back  to  Asia.  They  carried  with  them, 
however,  a  knowledge  of  Grecian  liberty  and 
an  evidence  of  the  courage  of  that  liberty.  A 
priceless  thing.  The  greatest  blessing  Greece 
could  give,  had  they  been  able  to  appropriate 
it.  But  the  flower  that  blossomed  so  profusely 
among  the  sons  of  Greece  could  not  take  root 
on  Asiatic  soil.  The  lesson  which  these  favored 
western  souls  had  solved,  and  written  in  Ionian 
blood,  their  blind  barbarian  brothers  could  not 
read. 

So  the  struggle  was  for  naught,  or  seemed 
for  naught.  Some  may  have  read  the  lesson, 


68 


Souls  of  the  Infinite 


lone 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  69 

but  perished  in  its  reading,  and  some  through 
distance  may  have  gained  a  clearer  view,  but 
on  the  whole  'twas  little  that  wras  gained.  The 
king,  perhaps,  was  entertained,  and  some  other 
interests  may  have  been  woven  by  the  play. 
Time  saw  an  Arab  prince  renew  each  year  his 
pilgrimage  to  Greece.  Fleet  Nejd  steeds  he 
often  brought  for  gifts  to  Attagimus.  And 
a  little  dark-haired  Grecian  boy,  an  only  child, 
joy  of  his  home,  played  in  Zone's  garden. 


CHAPTER  V 

RASHID  we  left  in  Arabia,  but  as  soon  as 
Mother  Earth  had  claimed  her  own,  her  ani 
mated  clay,  as  soon  as  the  soul  was  free,  we 
find  it  again  in  Greece.  It  had  companions 
there,  and  besides,  there  was  another  and  a 
stronger  tie,  that  drew  it  to  the  shores  of  Hel 
las.  And,  in  life's  declining  time,  often  as 
lone  pondered,  something  in  the  garden  zephyr 
seemed  to  fold  her,  soft  and  dreamy,  pressing 
on  her  silver  tresses  gentle  kisses  and  caresses, 
though  she  guessed  not  what  it  was. 

But  souls  are  not  in  idle  felicity  maintained; 
they  must  grow  stronger  with  duty  done,  the 
same  as  we.  So  Thaddeus  took  up  his  burden 
here  in  Greece,  and  took  it  gladly,  for  his  was 
an  ambitious  soul,  and  here  was  opportunity 
a-plenty — examples  to  encourage,  inspiring 
thoughts  from  minds  of  native  force,  precepts 
from  intellects  that  strove  to  grasp  the  infinite. 

The  gods  austere,  or  exacting  destinies, — > 
the  powers  that  hold  the  mysteries  of  men,  by, 

70 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  71 

whatever  name  we  know  them, — must  certainly 
have  looked  with  admiration  upon  these  reso 
lute  sons  of  Greece,  these  untiring  souls, 
searching  the  universe  for  knowledge,  exhaust 
ing  every  talent,  every  mental  resource  to  find 
and  know  the  truth.  And  such  lofty  heights 
did  they  attain,  such  thinking  power,  their  light 
spread  out  through  all  the  wrorld.  They 
marked  the  way  within  the  realm  of  thought 
for  coming  ages. 

What  strength,  then,  did  this  hungry  soul 
take  here  in  Greece!  The  bonds  of  ages  \vere 
broke  from  off  it,  and  it  bounded  forward  like 
a  runner  free  with  eager  sinews.  Two  hundred 
years  we  might  have  watched  its  rapid  strides 
from  shrouded  barbarism  until  they  seemed,  al 
most,  to  reach  the  bounds  of  human  under 
standing,  and  then, — whether  there  is  a  limit  to 
the  might  of  mortal  placed,  or  whether  its  fiery 
energy  was  spent, — it  seemed  it  could  go  no 
farther,  and  slowly  with  the  ebbing  current  of 
the  time  began  to  drift.  In  the  latter  days  of 
Macedonia  we  find  it  a  student  of  Logates,  in 
the  town  of  Corinth. 

His  class  of  fellow-students  numbered  eight. 
They  all  wore  tunics,  very  white,  with  golden 
girdles  about  their  waist,  and  had  their  hair 


72  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

fantastically  arranged.  Had  you  saluted  them 
some  morning  as  they  passed  to  school,  fresh 
from  their  homes,  you  would  have  seen  the 
polish  of  a  Chesterfield,  save  that  the  style  of 
clothes  was  very  simple,  and  that  their  feet 
were  bare.  And  had  you  listened  to  their  dis 
course  as  they  waited  round  their  lecture  place, 
which  was  a  corner  in  the  public  square,  it 
probably  would  have  made  you  think  of  Ox 
ford,  Yale  or  Harvard. 

They  spoke  with  poise  and  ease,  and  much 
abstraction,  cautious  to  make  assertions,  ever 
ready  with  many  tripping  questions  and  free 
and  quick  to  ridicule.  They  doubted  Plato's 
Phsedo,  and  they  held  that  good  old  Aristotle 
was  most  probably  mistaken  in  many  things  he 
said.  If  Stoic  virtue  was  the  only  good,  they 
preferred  to  have  it  proven,  and  it  was  no  easy 
task  to  prove  to  them  a  theorem.  A  very  skep 
tic  class,  indeed,  these  pupils  of  Logates,  and 
quite  irreverent.  They  called  their  tutor,  in 
his  absence,  "Old  Ipse  Dixit,"  not  for  any 
great  thing  which  he  had  said,  but  for  the 
whiskers  which  he  wore. 

On  this  particular  morning  the  class  seemed 
agitated  and  in  no  frame  of  mind  to  listen  to 
equations.  There  had  been  trouble  in  the  town 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  73 

the  night  before,  and  now  one  of  their  senior 
members  was  recounting  the  atrocious  acts  of 
Sparta. 

"You  see,  fellow-students,"  said  he,  "these 
greedy  Spartans  hope,  by  paying  court  to 
Rome,  to  gather  increased  power  unto  them 
selves.  But  their  folly  is  only  equaled  by  their 
stupidity,  and  they  will  receive  a  rude  awaken 
ing.  For  the  hand  of  this  plebeian  mistress  is 
not  in  Peloponnese  or  northern  Greece  for 
any  good  save  for  her  own.  Her  base  perfidy 
is  too  painfully  apparent.  I  would  rather  see 
fair  Corinth  become  a  brother  to  these  despised 
Helots  of  ours  than  to  embrace  this  proffered 
friendship,  this  hypocrisy  of  Rome.  Why 
should  they  be  so  deceived?  What  she  has 
done  to  Macedonia,  will  she  not  do  to  Corinth 
and  to  Sparta?  I  say,  fellow  students,  these 
peace  commissioners  have  Roman  breastplates 
beneath  their  togas,  and  these  olive  branches 
she  pretends  to  be  distributing  among  the 
states  of  Greece  are  but  the  forerunners  of 
Roman  javelins  and  Roman  laws.  She  is  not 
trying  to  foster  harmony  among  us,  but  to  dis 
seminate  dissension." 

"It  is  exactly  so,  as  you  have  said,  dear  Pho- 
sas,"  replied  a  brother  student,  "and  if  only 


74s  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

now  could  rise  within  the  bounds  of  Corinth 
some  son  who  had  within  his  bosom  the  iron 
spirit  of  our  fathers,  would  not  there  be  a  stif 
fening  of  these  Dorian  necks  and  a  fleeting  pic 
ture  of  the  hinder  parts  of  Roman  legates? 
But  alas!  The  times  are  changed.  Our  men 
have  vanished.  Sparta  has  only  whimpering 
women  within  her  gates,  and  Corinth  has 
brought  forth  only  daughters.  The  fiery  blood 
of  Greece  is  gone,  and  in  its  place  flows  only 
milky  water.  Our  northern  kinfolks  have  al 
ready  meekly  placed  their  heads  beneath  the 
Roman  yoke,  and  Sparta  now  is  kneeling  for 
her  load.  Such  menial  submission!  It  should 
make  the  marble  grave-stones  of  our  ancestors 
to  weep.  T,  for  one,  the  last  son  of  the  house 
of  Cypselidse,  shall  go  to  Alexandria  and  there 
bury  in  philosophic  study  the  memory  of  these 
humiliating  times." 

Rashid,  or,  rather,  Miltias,  for  his  name  was 
now  Miltias,  sat  silent ;  he  was  the  youngest  of 
the  school,  though  not  by  any  means  the  least, 
and  junior  courtesy  required  it.  He  had  in 
abundance  that  smoldering  hatred  for  the  Ro 
mans,  and  had  been  one  of  the  foremost  rioters 
of  the  night  before,  for  which  he  harbored 
many  bruises  now  beneath  his  tunic.  He  also 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  75 

expected  to  leave  Corinth  upon  the  coming 
summer  for  Syracuse  to  finish  mathematics, 
but  things  were  so  unsettled  here.  They  had 
been  so  for  months,  and  he  had  pondered  much 
the  conditions  of  the  times.  Why  was  it 
Greece  was  slowly  slipping  from  her  former 
place?  She  had  produced  the  greatest  minds 
and  towered  above  the  nations  of  the  world,  but 
now  no  more  did  Grecian  thought  create,  and 
her  national  foundation  was  crumbling  beneath 
her  feet.  Where  was  the  fault  ?  Was  there  no 
more  within  the  book  of  life  to  read,  or  had  her 
early  readers  lost  the  page?  Perhaps  she  had 
built  unevenly;  had  paid  too  little  heed  to  the 
material  things;  forgot  the  homely  practical 
for  metaphysics'  lofty  flight.  Perhaps  she  had 
been  too  intent  on  universal  good,  had  given  to 
the  world  her  energetic  soul  and  now  was  suf 
fering  in  her  body,  and  suffering  broke  her 
spirit.  He  did  not  believe  one  iron-willed  son 
of  Corinth,  nor  many  such,  could  bolster  up  the 
dying  state  of  Greece.  The  fault  of  that  was 
in  the  framework,  which  had  allowed  the  tim 
ber  of  the  superstructure  to  decay. 

This  was  the  early  spring,  and  Miltias  went 
not  to  Syracuse  that  coming  summer,  but  to 
Rome,  and  not  to  study  mathematics,  but  a 


76  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

captive  for  the  Roman  market.  Perfidious 
Latium  had  cast  aside  her  mask,  replaced  her 
peace  commissions  by  her  legions,  and  fair  Cor 
inth  was  a  smoldering  heap  of  ashes. 

With  many  other  captives  in  the  market 
place  he  stood.  A  huge  tablet,  fastened  to  his 
tunic,  proclaimed  in  Roman  letters  that  his 
name  was  Miltias;  that  he  was  nineteen  years 
old;  of  good  parentage;  educated  in  all  the 
knowledge  of  the  Greeks,  and  that  he  had  been 
a  pupil  of  Logates.  He  was  purchased  by 
Q.  Aurelius  Critolius,  a  wealthy  Roman  noble 
man. 

It  is  hard  to  imagine  the  initiatory  effect  of 
such  a  radical  transformation,  from  unrestrict 
ed  liberty  and  wealth  to  the  loss  of  everything 
— home,  family,  and,  we  might  say,  individu 
ality.  But  these  Greeks  were  so  predominated 
by  intellect,  which  tends  to  minimize  obligatory 
or  unavoidable  physical  hardship.  Miltias  was 
an  advanced  type  of  such  a  man. 

There  is  danger,  under  pleasant  physical 
conditions,  in  too  rapid  a  rise  to  too  lofty  intel 
lectual  heights.  The  mind  seems  to  see  too 
suddenly  the  naked  vanity  of  life ;  human  enig 
mas  are  shattered,  and  it  grows  dizzy.  Ambi 
tion  seems  to  have  no  further  attraction. 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  77 

Mortal  hopes  appear  unreliable.  The  humble 
aspirations  of  life  seem  insignificant.  Custom 
loses  its  prestige.  The  mind  casts  about  with 
out  compass  or  anchor;  destination  and  land 
marks  are  lost.  There  is  danger  for  the  soul  in 
such  a  condition.  The  personal  equation  may 
cause  it  to  revert  or  even  to  annihilate  itself. 

Miltias  had  begun  to  faintly  feel  this  myste 
rious  delirium,  and  while  now  he  sorrowed  for 
his  kin  and  Corinth,  he  may  have  halfway  wel 
comed  the  change  for  himself,  as  something 
new  which  might  prove  more  substantial. 

The  treatment  accorded  these  educated 
slaves  was  often  very  good,  for  the  Romans 
had  always  a  deal  of  respect  and  veneration 
for  Greek  learning;  though  of  the  laboring 
slaves  it  was  the  most  drastic,  they  had  become 
so  plentiful. 

Critolius  owned  ten  thousand  slaves  himself. 
He  cultivated  two  immense  tracts  of  land  in 
Picenum,  besides  his  estate  in  Etruria,  where 
was  also  his  country  villa.  Young  Miltias  be 
came  his  secretary,  and  as  such  was  soon  famil 
iar  with  all  his  dealings.  He  wras  a  gigantic 
schemer,  and  most  of  his  private  business  was 
in  connection  with  the  government.  The  rec 
ords,  which  Miltias  kept  in  charge,  showed 


78  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

much  irregularity  and  dishonest  practice ;  these 
vast  tracts  which  he  held  in  Picenum  did  not 
rightfully  belong  to  Critolius,  but  were  gov 
ernment  land,  having  been  ceded  to  the  Roman 
State  when  the  Picenum  people  rebelled.  The 
Critolii,  like  many  other  wealthy  Roman  fami 
lies,  had  at  first,  many  years  before,  simply 
leased  the  land,  but  now  laid  claim  to  it  as 
private  property. 

Just  now  this  Critolius  was  extremely  busy, 
and  there  were  many  meetings  of  senators  and 
Optimates  at  his  Etrurian  villa.  His  interest, 
which  was  similar  to  that  of  other  Optimates, 
was  this:  Some  seven  thousand  acres  of  the 
land  which  he  claimed  in  Picenum  had  been, 
under  government  supervision,  leased  to  small 
farmers,  Picenum  families  who  had  tilled  it  as 
their  own  before  the  government  confiscation. 
But  government  supervision  was  irksome  to 
these  greedy  Optimates.  It  was  more  profit 
able  to  till  the  land  with  slaves,  if  only  they 
could  drive  off  these  farmers.  To  bring  this 
about  peaceably,  the  Optimistic  class,  which 
was  mostly  the  rich  landholders,  were  engineer 
ing  a  law  through  the  Roman  Senate  which 
was  called  "The  Populares'  Right  to  Title." 
It  provided  that  the  poor  farmer,  by;  simply 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  79 

proving  a  certain  number  of  years'  residence 
upon  the  land,  could  recover  his  former  title. 

The  law  appeared  very  good  to  the  Popu- 
lares,  and  by  this  bait  the  Optimates  drew 
great  numbers  of  them  in  before  the  courts. 
They  were  compelled  to  bring  their  families 
for  witnesses.  But  the  courts  dragged  the  mat 
ters  along,  and  once  off  the  land,  and  posses 
sion  gone,  the  poor  farmer  never  got  back 
again. 

Miltias  spent  four  years,  active,  in  the  inter 
ests  of  Critolius,  for  his  persistent  soul  would 
not  be  quiet.  He  made  Critolius  powerful,  he 
acquired  power  himself.  Still  he  was  not  satis 
fied;  a  nameless  wanting,  which  he  pursued, 
ever  evaded  him.  Something  was  distressing 
and  disturbing.  He  saw  the  workings  of  such 
laws  as  this,  together  with  other  more  grasping 
tactics,  which  he  had  aided,  gradually  dividing 
the  wealth  of  Italy  among  a  few  greedy,  over- 
rich  landlords ;  gradually  filling  her  cities  with 
a  discouraged,  poverty-stricken  laboring  class. 
He  saw  men  of  prominence,  wholly  without 
scruples,  grabbing  for  added  riches.  He  saw 
lawmakers  and  judges  selling  their  honor  for 
gold,  the  sacred  temples  of  justice  profaned 
without  discretion.  He  saw  the  rulers  de- 


80  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

praved  with  plundered  wealth,  the  people  de 
bauched  with  poverty. 

For  four  years  his  assiduous  soul  had  been 
weighing  the  life  of  Rome,  but  there  was  noth 
ing  new  here,  nothing  substantial.  It  was  in 
finitely  worse  than  Greece.  There  seemed  to 
be  no  right,  no  honor  nor  manhood  here;  every 
thing  prostituted  for  gold.  Not  one  sacred 
thing  remaining  on  which  to  hang  a  hope. 

He  had  pondered  long  upon  the  backward 
step  of  Greece,  but  here  the  riddle  was  easily 
read.  They  had  been  searching  in  lofty  ab 
straction  for  the  true  object  of  life.  Rome  was 
groveling  in  the  basest  material  for  that  same 
object.  The  hope  of  Greece  had  been  blighted, 
he  believed,  through  faulty  framework  in  her 
democracy;  but  here  was  a  country  wholly  per 
verted,  whose  government  was  about  to  fall 
from  its  own  rottenness.  His  comprehensive 
mind  had  inquired  diligently,  had  reasoned  ex 
haustively.  He  had  seen  people  who  loved 
peace  despoiled  by  the  arm  of  the  alien.  He 
had  seen  the  despoilers  spoil  their  own.  He 
had  pursued  with  earnestness  the  path  of 
knowledge;  he  had  labored  incessantly  for 
power.  He  had  possessed  wealth  and  received 
honor  as  the  reward  of  efficiency;  yet  all  had 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  81 

been  marred — or  marred  itself,  was  unsubstan 
tial,  insufficient.  Where,  then,  was  the  abiding 
good  to  be  attained ;  where,  then,  was  peace  of 
mind;  where,  then,  was  truth?  His  soul  was 
distraught  and  bewildered;  that  vacant  de 
lirium  was  returning  again. 

Critolius  sent  him  this  summer,  with  rein 
forcements,  to  his  nephew,  Satureius,  who  was 
encamped  with  Roman  legions  upon  the  Rhine, 
in  northern  Gaul.  Here  he  saw  the  frontier, 
the  outposts  of  the  arms  of  Rome,  the  van  of 
her  invasion.  His  active  mind  quickly  realized 
its  significance,  its  relation  to  the  whole.  Rome, 
dissipated  and  fraught  with  internal  strife,  was 
of  necessity  finding  new  outlets  to  divert  her 
energy;  external  resistance  to  combine  herself 
at  home.  Instinctively,  to  prolong  her  life  she 
was  enlarging  her  border.  But  he  read  plainly 
the  end  of  this. 

About  the  camp  the  valley  woods  hung  sear 
and  brown.  Miltias,  the  Corinthian,  now  a 
centurion  of  mighty  Rome,  wandered  beneath 
its  tangled  shade  alone.  His  discouraged  soul 
was  heedless,  life  seemed  wholly  weighed  and 
wanting;  knowledge,  wealth,  power,  all  that 
Greece  or  Rome  could  give,  was  lacking; 
peace  of  mind  he  had  not  found.  Around  him 


82  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

fell  the  silent  shadows  of  the  past,  the  wind 
among  the  branches  sang  the  same  old  song  of 
ages,  o'er  him  folded  the  solemn  stillness  of 
the  wilderness.  Somewhere  locked  within  its 
ancient  depths  there  must  be  peace.  Aimlessly 
he  wandered  musing  thus — but  hark!  What 
was  that  distant  note  which  sounded  from  the 
river,  so  still,  so  distant,  'twas  like  the  faintest 
echo  borne?  It  must  have  been  a  rustle  from 
the  trees.  But  no — something  within  him 
stirred;  he  surely  felt  it. 

It  comes  again;  and  not  so  indistinct.  'Tis 
wafted  by  the  stream  from  far,  far  down  the 
river,  the  rugged  lands  of  the  wild  Teutons.  It 
is  a  call,  enticing.  It  echoes  round  and  round 
his  discouraged  soul  in  gently  whispering  ed 
dies.  Something  within  him  seemed  to  kindle. 
The  restless  soul  was  harking  back. 

Again  the  river  brings  it  to  him,  more  plain, 
more  mellow  and  more  coaxing: 

"There's  welcome  here.  There's  freedom. 
There's  homely,  honest  manhood  with  native 
pride.  Sweet  nature  for  a  kind,  caressing 
mother.  Come!" 

His  soul  goes  out  in  answer  to  the  call,  and 
Miltias,  young  but  old,  followed  the  beckoning, 
off,  off  in  that  wilding  wild.  Forgot  his  weary 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  83 

mind — and  the  quiet  of  the  trackless  German 
forest  covered  all. 

The  same  which  taught  him  first  and  sent 
him  forth,  burning  with  energy,  had  called  him, 
tired  and  hopeless,  back  to  her  peaceful  bosom. 


CHAPTER  VI 

IN  the  year  732  of  our  Lord,  the  110th  of  the 
Hegira,  the  fifteenth  of  the  reign  of  Leo  III, 
the  Isaurian;  in  fact,  it  might  have  had  an  in 
definite  number  of  dates.  Dates  are  only  arti 
ficial  things,  made  by  man  for  his  own  conveni 
ence,  and  have  nothing  whatever  else  to  do  with 
time.  This  planet  of  ours  goes  on  making  its 
laps  around  the  sun,  and  they  might  just  as 
well  be  enumerated  one,  one,  one,  for  they  are 
all  the  same.  One  year  is  no  different  from 
another,  no  farther  from  a  beginning,  no  near 
er  to  an  end.  This  process  is  a  ceaseless  thing. 
You  might  probably  be  willing  to  take  an  oath 
that  this  is  the  year  of  our  Lord  1911,  but  it 
would  be  a  false  oath,  because  this  year  has  no 
number.  You  could  just  as  honestly  say  it  is 
the  year  one,  for  time  changes  not,  but  shines 
on  continually.  Thus  the  fallaciousness  of  our 
most  established  human  customs.  Of  course, 
it  is  quite  convenient  to  call  it  1911,  or  some 

84 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  85 

other  generally  accepted  name,  so  as  to  corre 
late  human  events;  but  do  not  think  that  the 
years  go  on  piling  up,  because  they  do  not. 

Well,  in  this  year  732  a  cloud  was  lowering 
on  the  southern  horizon  of  Europe.  The  cres 
cent  of  Mohammed,  supported  by  the  fiery  zeal 
of  religious  fanaticism,  which  had  cast  its  wax 
ing  shadow  from  the  Bosphorus  through  Asia 
and  Africa  to  northern  Spain,  seemed  now 
about  to  round  into  a  full  eclipse. 

Three  armies  of  those  once  invincible  Roman 
legions  had  tried  in  vain  to  check  their  rapid 
progress.  Alexandria  and  the  descendants  of 
boastful  Carthage  had  been  swept  like  chaff 
before  the  wild  enthusiasm  of  these  desert  war 
riors. 

The  Gothic  guards  of  Spain  and  southern 
France  had  been  cut  to  pieces  by  their  crooked 
scimitars,  and  Europe  lay  trembling  before  this 
sable  Saracen  shadow.  Their  swift  coursers 
were  about  to  overrun  all  Christendom. 

But  there  was  a  rumbling  beyond  the  Rhine, 
a  gathering  of  clans.  Those  sturdy  Teutons 
were  coming  from  their  bogs  and  marshes, 
from  their  steppes  and  from  their  forests. 
Girt  in  their  rawhide  harness,  with  heavy  mace 
and  whetted  battle-ax  they  strode  out  upon  the 


86  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

plains  of  Tauris  to   cast  their  rustic  valor 
athwart  the  progress  of  these  Moslem  hordes. 

The  day  was  long  upon  that  trodden  field, 
where  hung  the  future  course  of  history. 
Many  a  German  fell,  and  many  a  sinking  Sar 
acen  found  his  deluded  paradise  in  sodden 
Frankish  soil.  The  struggle  locked  in  carnage, 
and  those  Semitic  sabers  cut  furiously,  but 
their  desert  god  could  not  sustain  them  beneath 
the  awful  blows  of  these  rugged  Aryan 
yeomen. 

Our  soul  of  Thaddeus  was  in  the  turmoil, 
though  now  he  bore  a  German  name.  With 
Miltias,  weary  of  the  way  of  nations,  it  had 
thought  to  hide  itself  among  these  pristine  for 
est  folks.  But  it  could  not  be.  This  abiding 
place  of  mortals  is  too  circumscribed  and  their 
interests  too  related  to  allow  any  member  to  lay 
down  his  hand.  For  the  rest  play  on,  and 
whoever  is  not  there  to  tend  his  interests  in  the 
game  will  lose  his  heritage.  The  other  players 
will  it  divide  among  themselves.  The  whole 
family  will  not,  cannot,  be  quiet;  so,  therefore, 
each  must  play — must  play  for  himself,  and 
must  play  for  himself  that  is  to  come. 

So  we  see  it  here.  The  soul  of  Thaddeus 
could  not  go  back  to  rest,  could  not  live  again, 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  87 

unmolested,  that  wild,  free  life  which  had  once 
been  his.  That  was  gone.  The  course  of  hu 
man  events  had  buried  it.  And,  though  he  may 
have  been  willing  to  take  his  share  of  the  un 
cultured  German's  burden,  that  was  not  suf 
ficient.  The  Germans  must  take  their  share  of 
the  Teuton's  burden,  and  the  Teutons  must 
take  their  share  of  the  world's  burden.  So  it  is 
we  find  him  here  again  upon  the  stage. 

He  is,  however,  a  more  rugged  soul  than 
when  we  lost  him,  more  prone  to  consider  the 
physical  aspect  of  things,  and  far  less  prone  to 
call  any  man  master,  or  even  leader.  These 
Teutons  had  an  indomitable  love  of  personal 
liberty.  They  also  had  a  love  and  respect  for 
women,  which  was  not  in  the  men  of  Italy  or 
Greece,  which  revived  in  our  soldier  a  buried 
remnant  of  his  Arabian  life. 

From  the  victorious  fields  of  Tauris  he  now 
looked  out  on  the  world  of  action,  the  world 
which  he  had  left,  but  it  showed  little  attrac 
tiveness  to  him.  He  saw  the  government  of 
Italy  fallen.  Its  rottenness  had  overtaken  it. 
He  saw  petty  chiefs  of  Western  Europe 
wrangling  over  the  fragments  of  the  dying 
Empire.  He  saw  the  people  trodden  under 
foot,  neglected  and  oppressed,  valued  onljr  as 


88  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

so  many  conscripts  who  might  be  hurried  to 
battle.  His  own  experience  was  still  in  his 
memory,  so  now  that  his  duty  was  done,  the 
terror  of  Islam  broken  and  the  danger  past, 
he  turned  him  again  to  the  forest.  Away  to 
the  north  he  would  go,  deeper  than  before,  far, 
far  beyond  the  Rhine,  into  the  land  lapped  by 
the  German  Ocean. 

This,  however,  afforded  only  a  momentary 
respite.  The  hand  of  man  pressed  hard  be 
hind  him,  and  the  hand  of  nature  stood  hard 
before.  This  was  a  bleak  and  barren  shore, 
not  like  the  fertile  forest  he  had  left. 

The  broken  country  roughly  fitted  his  un 
broken  spirit.  He  loved  peace,  but  not  at  so 
dear  a  cost.  He  turned  at  bay,  and  we  see  him 
leaving  the  Danish  coast.  Let  others  stand 
those  rugged  realms  who  could  do  no  better. 

He  is  the  shipmate  of  a  long,  dark,  ugly- 
looking  craft,  the  Gefion.  On  her  prow  is  a 
huge  dragon's  head,  with  gaping  jaws,  and  her 
sail  is  wide  and  striped  with  red.  A  red  pen 
nant  also  flutters  from  her  masthead,  for  she  is 
a  pirate.  The  soul  of  Thaddeus  was  now  within 
the  bosom  of  a  Viking. 

The  Gefion's  prow  wras  turned  to  the  south 
ward.  Behind  her  was  nothing  but  unsheltered 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  89 

shores,  and  there  was  at  least  a  hope  before. 
The  wave  which  had  traveled  over  Europe  had 
reached  a  barrier  and  the  crest  was  breaking 
back  upon  itself. 

For  one  hundred  years  the  home  of  Thad- 
deus  was  on  the  billow,  from  the  German  main 
to  the  coast  of  Italy.  And  many  a  crimson 
spot  marked  the  landing  of  the  Gefion,  and 
many  a  heap  of  ashes  marked  her  departure. 
These  wild  Viking  pirates,  men  without  a  coun 
try,  crowded  off  the  too  narrow  limits  of  the 
rapid-growing  human  family.  They  were  still 
free,  however,  these  rovers  of  the  rolling  sea, 
who  recked  not  for  state  or  land,  nor  kissed  no 
petty  monarch's  hand ;  their  kingdom's  bounds 
their  galley's  keel,  their  law  the  terror  of  their 
steel. 

So  he  lived ;  but  this,  too,  must  have  an  end, 
and  in  the  tenth  century  we  find  him  one  of  a 
settlement  of  Norsemen  in  Normandy,  France. 
He  is  a  liegeman  of  the  renowned  Rollo,  and 
his  name  is  Bjorn. 

In  Normandy  at  this  time  we  have  only  free 
men  and  their  leaders,  but  over  the  rest  of  Eu 
rope  we  see  a  rapidly  forming  system  which 
might  be  called  a  feudalistic  gradation  of  so 
ciety;.  The  thing  in  its  incipiency  may  have 


90  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

been  of  necessity;  but  ere  it  was  fairly  started, 
it  was  diverted  and  became  simply  a  marking- 
off,  a  separation  of  rulers  from  the  ruled. 

Europe  was  quieting  now ;  society  was  crys 
tallizing,  so  to  speak;  it  was  sort  of  an  adjust 
ing  time.  The  strong  and  those  who  had  an 
advantage  were  climbing  into  the  saddle,  and 
laws  were  being  fastened  to  the  people's  heads, 
like  reins  to  a  horse's  bridle.  We  have  seen 
something  similar  in  ancient  Chaldea,  only  that 
was  more  military,  more  the  relation  of  captive 
to  conqueror.  This  is  more  civil  and  more  in 
detail. 

About  the  year  916,  for  the  sake  of  peace 
Normandy's  chief  accepted  a  tenureship  from 
King  Charles  of  France.  It  was  hardly  a 
tenureship,  for  they  already  had  the  land  and 
seemed  able  to  hold  it.  It  was  more  a  form,  to 
end  hostilities,  but  it  brought  Normandy  into 
the  feudal  system.  By  its  conditions  Hollo  was 
to  marry  the  king's  daughter  and  to  accept 
Christianity — he  and  his  men. 

He  talked  it  over  with  Bjorn: — This  Chris 
tianity,  a  queer  cult  which  had  come  up  from 
Rome, — they  at  Rome  purporting  to  have  re 
ceived  it  from  some  prophet  in  the  East. 
There  was  little  ceremony  connected  with  its 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  91 

acceptance,  mainly  the  acknowledgment  of 
their  God  to  be  greater  than  Odin,  and  being 
baptized  in  water  by  one  of  their  priests. 
Bjorn  had  little  compunction  about  this;  he  had 
never  received  any  particular  aid  from  Odin 
that  he  could  remember,  and  he  quite  frequent 
ly  baptized  himself. 

King  Charles,  however,  demanded  further, 
that  Rollo  should  kiss  his  toe.  "Ne  si,  be  Got" 
(Not  so,  by  God),  answered  the  indignant 
Norseman.  At  last,  however,  he  consented 
that  it  should  be  done  by  proxy,  and  Bjorn  was 
appointed  to  the  task.  Such  a  performance 
as  this  was  not  in  the  least  agreeable  to  Viking 
nature,  and  when  Bjorn  did  kiss  King  Charles' 
toe  he  jerked  it  up  so  roughly  that  the  king 
was  thrown  over  backwards,  which  event  is  still 
told  in  Normandy. 

The  teaching  of  this  new  cult  appeared  very 
good.  It  condemned  many  of  the  cruel  things 
men  did,  and  taught  brotherly  love  and  charity. 
The  soul  of  Thaddeus  embraced  it  warmly, 
though  it  doubted  if  the  prophet  really  said  a 
great  many  of  the  other  things  which  it  taught. 
Nor  did  these  teachings  appear  to  it  to  be  of 
supernatural  origin;  on  the  contrary,  they  ap 
peared  very  natural  and  humane,  quite  like  a 


92  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

Grecian  philosopher  had  taught  and  given  his 
life  for,  ages  before,  but  whom  the  people 
never  accepted.  However,  the  teachings  were 
much  better  than  those  they  already  had,  and 
the  prophet  must  have  been  a  very  great  and 
good  man.  They  were  bound  to  result  in  good 
if  men  followed  them. 


One  hundred  and  fifty  years  rolled  round. 
Normandy  is  dotted  with  feudal  castles.  The 
seventh  chief  to  hold  the  tenureship  is  William 
the  Great.  He  is  now  called  a  duke,  and  the 
people  are  called  Normans.  Bjorn,  the  fourth 
descendant,  whose  name  has  softened  into  Jean, 
is  one  of  his  chief  retainers. 

The  people  of  Europe  are  Christianized  and 
divided  off  into  unstable  nations  of  French, 
German,  Spanish,  Italian,  etc.  Feudalism  has 
become  thoroughly  established;  so  much  so, 
that  the  rulers  of  these  various  peoples  are  not 
the  kings,  but  the  powerful  dukes  and  barons. 
The  people  themselves  are  of  so  little  conse 
quence  that  the  current  history  rarely  mentions 
them  at  all,  save  to  incidentally  state  that  a 
revolt  of  the  German  peasants  received  sum 
mary  justice,  or  that  an  uprising  in  France  was 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  93 

stamped  out  and  the  malcontents  punished 
(which  meant  exterminated),  or  that  the  com 
moners  of  Normandy,  complaining,  asking  for 
their  old-time  rights  as  Norsemen,  the  peti 
tioners'  heads  were  cut  off  and  sent  back  among 
the  people  for  an  example.  The  people  in  gen 
eral  had  absolutely  no  rights  at  all  which  the 
nobles  felt  bound  to  respect. 

We  said  the  people  of  Europe  were  divided 
off  into  Frenchmen,  Germans,  Spanish,  Ital 
ians,  etc.  Jean  saw  it  thus,  but  to  the  soul  of 
Thaddeus  all  Europe  contained  just  two 
classes :  the  people  and  their  rulers.  The  sepa 
ration  was  now  complete;  not  one  tie  of  race, 
blood,  or  anything  else,  was  recognized  between 
them,  save  only  the  relation  of  master  and  ser 
vant.  This  was  recognized  and  rigidly  en 
forced.  The  great  bulk  of  the  inhabitants,  who 
had  once  enjoyed  comparative  liberty  and  a 
voice  in  choosing  their  leaders,  were  now  on  a 
parallel  with  the  beasts  of  the  field,  or  beneath 
them.  The  rulers  showed  them  no  respect  or 
consideration  whatever.  A  French  or  Spanish 
noble  was  just  as  contented  and  just  as  often 
to  be  found  upon  a  German  or  English  duke 
dom  as  on  his  own,  and  vice  versa.  It  made  no 
difference  to  the  rulers — they  were  all  one  f am- 


94  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

ily,  uncles,  aunts,  nephews,  brothers,  cousins, 
all  related;  but  the  subjects,  the  commoners, 
they  were  as  alien  as  the  inhabitants  of  Mars — 
any  of  their  blood  was  a  taint,  a  vulgar  stain. 

Thus  the  soul  saw  it,  and  this  Christianity, 
from  which  it  had  hoped  so  much,  this  church 
of  Rome,  which  came  preaching  charity  and  the 
essential  equality  of  high  and  low,  now  owned 
one-half  of  the  land  of  Europe,  and  was  using 
its  power  to  uphold  the  unrighteous  condition 
of  things.  The  teachings  of  the  Eastern 
prophet  were  good  in  themselves,  but  they  had 
been  saddled  and  made  to  draw  a  load  of  privi 
leged  greed. 

This  was  the  summer  in  which  William  the 
Great  prepared  the  invasion  of  England. 
Duke  William  is  sometimes  known  by  another 
name  because  of  his  birth,  his  mother,  Harlotta, 
never  having  been  married — but  that  need  not 
concern  us.  He  was  the  Duke  of  Normandy 
by  right  of  title  and  by  right  of  the  fittest.  His 
father  sanctioned  his  succession  and  could  have 
removed  the  stigma  from  his  name  had  he  so 
desired,  but  it  would  not  have  changed  his  love 
for  Harlotta,  nor  his  affections  for  his  son.  It 
was  merely  an  existing  custom  which  he  chose 
not  to  keep. 


Souls  of  the  Infinite 


95 


9 


A  royal  hunt 


96  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

Normandy  was  this  time  marshaling  her 
might;  these  Viking  descendants,  whose  blood 
had  not  yet  fitly  cooled,  were  gathering  for  ac 
tivity.  Jean  and  his  fellows,  the  St.  Fontain 
Knights,  were  at  Duke  William's  castle,  Fa- 
laise,  where  was  the  flower  of  his  army  gath 
ered.  Gay  pomp  and  courteous  chivalry,  in 
deed,  adorned  that  castle  court;  knights  with 
dancing  plumes  were  waiting;  gauntleted  cava 
liers  knelt  low  in  gilded  trappings;  crested 
lords  and  stately  barons  bowed  there  to 
beauty's  favor,  paid  royal  fealty  to  blushing 
fair.  The  castle  rang  with  merriment,  and 
many  a  lively  tilt  was  there  to  entertain,  for 
William  offered  trophies  rare  for  the  most  dex 
terous  knight-at-arms. 

It  was  the  gay  St.  Fontain  horsemen  who 
carried  off  near  every  prize.  Among  all  the 
Norman  nobles  they  had  no  peers  for  daring, 
reckless  gallantry,  theirs  was  the  lightest  heart 
and  theirs  the  heaviest  hand.  Alike  they  rode 
for  love  or  glory,  these  troopers  from  the 
south,  matchless  knights  in  foraying  frays  or 
festal  tournaments.  And  many  a  royal  token 
had  they  won,  and  many  a  courtly  dame  had 
smiled  to  see  them  wheel  their  mettled  chargers 
round.  Right  valiant  fellows  they,  whose 


Souls  of  the  Infinite 


97 


One  lone  knight  rode  out  before  the  battle  joined,  tossing 
his  sword  in  air 


98  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

hearts  hung  on  their  saddle-bows.  One  of 
their  company  it  was  who  led  the  Norman 
charge  up  Hastings'  hill  of  carnage.  Perhaps 
in  history  you  have  read  how  one  lone  knight 
rode  out  before  the  battle  joined,  tossing  his 
sword  in  air,  and  singing  songs  of  Roland's 
stirring  deeds — like  a  dancing  bubble  upon 
the  bosom  of  a  bursting  storm — and  how  the 
astonished  English  gazed  in  stolid  wonder 
ment  at  such  careless  courage,  such  heedless 
dexterity. 

Jean  was  twenty  years  old  when  the  battle 
of  Hastings  was  fought;  after  that  he  lived  in 
England,  a  liegeman  of  Count  Eustace,  in 
Wessex.  For  fifty  years  he  led  the  feudal  life 
of  that  martial  age,  a  law  unto  himself,  render 
ing  nominal  homage  to  his  lord  and  exacting 
service  from  those  beneath  him. 

It  was  not  a  life  with  the  civilized  comforts 
of  to-day;  still,  for  the  ruling  class  it  was  quite 
easy,  quite  romantic,  those  courtly  castle  days. 
The  wandering  minstrel  came  to  hall  and 
tower,  an  ever-welcome  guest.  Bards  sang  in 
castle-hold  of  knighthood's  dauntless  deeds. 
The  harp  in  sweeter  tones  beguiled  the  while, 
in  days  of  peace  to  bid  the  warrior  smile; 
or,  when  in  lovelorn  notes  its  softer  ac- 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  99 

cents  fell,  the  maiden's  cheek  to  dry  or  heaving 
breast  to  swell. 

For  the  toilers,  however,  this  was  a  distress 
ing  age.  Their  rulers  took  from  them  the 
products  of  their  labors,  and  their  liberties  as 
well.  The  reason  why  they  endured  such  treat 
ment,  without  continued  rebellion,  was  because 
men  then  believed  it  to  be  right,  or  partly  right. 
They  recognized  the  nobility  as  superior  beings 
with  rightful  privileges,  and  man  has  stood 
volumes  of  abuse  when  he  believed  that  it  was 
right. 

About  the  time  that  Jean  was  fifty  years  old 
a  strange  wave  of  sacred  enthusiasm  spread 
wildly  over  Western  Europe.  It  was  a  conse 
quence  of  this  new  cult,  Christianity,  which  the 
soul  had  watched,  and  was  actively  promul 
gated  by  an  able  fanatic,  Peter  the  Hermit, 
who  preached  everywhere  that  men  should  take 
up  arms  and  become  literal  soldiers  of  the 
Cross,  should  engage  in  strife  and  bloodshed 
at  the  behest  of  that  lowly  Nazarene  who  him 
self  taught  only  love  and  mercy,  and  who  said 
to  his  disciple  Peter,  "Put  up  thy  sword." 

The  contagion  seized  all  classes;  lord  and 
liegeman,  knave  and  noble,  flocked  to  enroll 
themselves  beneath  this  banner  of  the  Cross. 


100  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

Ere  the  year  was  spent  eighty  thousand  men 
and  women  were  gathered  about  this  preaching 
monk,  eager  to  be  led  against  the  sacrilegious 
infidel. 

The  soul  looked  on  the  motley  columns 
marching  off  to  victory,  going  to  retrieve  the 
sacred  sepulchre,  pressing  forward  with  right 
eous  indignation  to  wreak  vengeance  and 
slaughter,  then  to  return  with  palms  of  blessed 
ness  and  great  rejoicing.  Or,  might  they  not 
return,  but  strew  the  Hellespontic  strand  with 
Christian  bones?  Could  it  be  possible  that  the 
gods  were  playing  them  another  trick,  like  to 
the  ancient  Hebrews  and  Assyrians? 

The  soul  of  Thaddeus  meditated.  It  was 
doubtful  of  this  new  God,  and  "His  Vicar  here 
on  earth,"  who  was  consecrating  movements 
bearing  so  many  earmarks  of  marauding  ex 
peditions.  Soldiers,  with  little  devoutness, 
were  everywhere  turning  to  these  movements 
with  such  fervored  zeal.  It  appeared  to  be  a 
thing  meet  for  much  consideration. 

Man,  from  the  very  first,  had  always  been 
prone  to  worship.  Why  was  it?  Was  there 
some  co-responsive  element  planted  in  his  na 
ture,  which  instinctively  turned  to  God?  The 
soul,  upon  careful  analysis,  could  find  no  such 


'Souls  of  the  Infinite  ;  ICl- 

element,  but  rather  this  worshipfulness  ap 
peared  to  be  a  kind  of  reaction,  or  reflection, 
from  his  own  deficiency.  Man  measures  all 
things  by  himself,  and  where  he  feels  his  own 
deficiencies  he  attributes  to  some  external  thing 
an  absence  of  these  deficiencies,  a  fulfillment. 
And  to  just  the  extent  that  he  feels  his  own 
weakness  he  glories  in  and  worships  the  com 
plete  thing.  If  his  own  wants  are  simple  and 
the  deficiencies  he  feels  are  of  a  rudimentary 
type,  then  a  very  simple  thing  will  do  him  for 
a  god.  The  savage  can  attribute  sufficient 
completeness  to  a  stone,  or  tree,  or  flame,  to 
worship  it.  As  soon,  however,  as  he  finds  defi 
ciencies  in  his  god,  or  his  increased  knowledge 
of  human  wants  enables  him  to  imagine  a  more 
complete  thing,  he  discards  the  former  god. 
It  ceases  to  inspire  worship  in  him.  Man  was 
one  time  awed  by  the  heavenly  bodies.  He 
then  projected  there  a  fulfillment  of  his  own 
imperfection  and  worshiped  them.  Later,  he 
imagined  a  more  complete  thing  which  con 
trolled  these  bodies,  and  his  worship  was  imme 
diately  transferred  to  it.  He  was  then  quite 
undeveloped,  however,  and  desired  something 
more  tangible,  not  so  distant,  so  he  fashioned 
earthly  images  or  accepted  human  characters 


lti2  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

as  symbolical  of  that  power  and  worshiped 
them.  But  as  fast  as  these  images  of  saints  and 
virgins  proved  ineffectual,  or  these  characters 
of  popes  and  priests  showed  defects,  he  dimin 
ished  his  worship  for  them.  Shortly  he  would 
have  left  only  one  human  character,  and  the 
power  itself,  to  whom  he  could  render  complete 
devotion.  These  would  probably  prove  quite 
substantial,  because  the  one  was  no  longer  ac 
tive  and  the  other  was  afar  off,  which  condi 
tions  hindered  the  observation  of  defects,  and 
allowed  man  to  add,  from  time  to  time,  more 
completeness  to  them,  as  his  own  knowledge 
increased.  Both,  however,  in  time,  the  soul  be 
lieved,  would  cease  to  be  objects  of  worship, 
becoming  objects  of  admiration. 

This  desire  for  a  god, — this  negative  deplora- 
tion  of  deficiencies  in  mankind, — the  soul  ob 
served,  also  operating  in  another  and  more  sim 
ple  way.  It  was  man's  veneration  for  a  great 
character  or  a  hero,  which  is  a  magnifying  in 
the  hero  of  the  absence  of  a  deficiency  which 
the  venerator  feels  in  himself.  And  in  just  the 
proportion  that  the  worshiper  feels  himself  the 
equal  of  the  worshiped,  does  his  veneration 
change  to  respect  and  regard. 

Morality  originally  had  nothing  to  do  with 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  103 

God.  The  soul  could  remember  when  the  gods 
cared  nothing  for  what  men  did  to  one  another. 
Morality,  the  idea  of  right  and  wrong,  grew  up 
by  itself,  a  resulting  consequence  of  pain — 
first,  physical ;  later,  mental.  It  developed  into 
a  varying  code  which  this  last  God  had  adopt 
ed,  making  it  obligatory  upon  his  followers. 

But  this  is  tedious.  Let  us  turn  again  to 
Jean,  the  Norman  nobleman,  descendant  of  a 
Viking,  custodian  of  the  soul  of  Thaddeus. 
He  now  is  old.  The  mark  of  time  is  on  his 
frosty  temples.  His  heart,  once  warm  and 
bounding,  is  beating  a  slow  tattoo.  Unsteady 
holds  a  staff,  the  hand  that  once  could  break  an 
iron  band.  Short  is  the  might  of  man.  His 
life, — the  world  for  him, — is  closing  like  a  day 
that's  done.  He  is  going  to  a  long,  long  rest, 
but  the  soul  must  labor  on. 


CHAPTER  VII 

FIVE  hundred  years  and  more  have  passed. 
The  soul  of  Thaddeus  has  been  carried  through 
tke  rise  of  the  barons,  through  the  reign  of  the 
Plantagenets,  the  civil  strife  of  the  Roses,  the 
Tudor  monarchies,  down  to  the  House  of 
Stuart.  The  vicissitudes  of  fortune  had  been 
many.  He  had  risen  with  the  obstinate,  insub 
ordinate  barons,  fallen  through  civil  strife 
and  the  iron  rule  of  kings,  and  now  was  bereft 
of  land  and  title. 

Under  the  Edwards  he  was  a  country  squire, 
but  the  existence  was  a  continual  struggle. 
Tke  grasping  rulers  were  never  satisfied,  and 
every  harvest  saw  the  toiler's  bin  grow  smaller. 
When  Richard  came  to  the  throne,  the  country 
folk  petitioned  for  a  redress  of  their  burdens. 
They  had  their  labor  and  something  worse  for 
their  pains;  seven  thousand  of  them  were 
hanged  and  the  rest  stood  meekly  by.  The  soul 
was  astounded.  Where  was  their  Teuton 
blood?  Why  would  they  not  defend  them- 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  105 

selves  ?  A  patriot  hero  labored  with  the  men  of 
Essex;  a  parish  father  exhorted  the  Kentish 
farmers — equality  the  burden  of  their  gospel — 
"When  Adam  delved  and  Eve  span,  who  was 
then  the  gentleman?" 

But  it  was  of  no  avail.  They  could  not 
see.  Another  custom  of  centuries'  growth 
had  crusted  over  the  minds  of  men.  They 
held  their  kingly  despot  in  reverence,  believed 
in  his  inviolate  right,  and  gazed  in  stupid 
fear  while  home  and  field  were  wasted.  This 
fungoid  custom  had  sapped  the  fire  from  out 
their  Saxon  veins.  The  soul  lamented.  If  for 
one  moment  they  could  have  stood  by  Clovis  in 
the  stubborn  shoes  of  their  wild  ancestors,  how, 
then,  would  they  have  redressed  these  griev 
ances!  But  custom  had  them  enthralled,  their 
hoe-handles  had  calloused  over  their  indignant 
spirit. 

The  discouraged  soul  longed  to  leave  these 
trampled  haunts  of  bruised  and  broken  men, 
but  there  was  nowhere  to  go.  It  must  toil  on, 
and  hope  that  some  day  these  Anglo-Saxon 
Teutons  would  awake. 

By  the  time  James  I  was  crowned,  the  peo 
ple  seemed  more  deluded  than  before.  They 
had  become  so  accustomed  to  the  abuse  of  kings 


106  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

that  now  they  attributed  to  them  divinity;  but 
this  was  a  signal  of  the  dawn,  for,  though  many 
believed  it,  many  more  would  not  believe. 

Thaddeus  was  now  a  yeoman,  a  Butler  ten 
ant  in  Hampshire,  near  the  New  Forest,  a 
landmark  of  a  ruthless  king.  His  name  was 
Thomas  Watkins. 

He  was  poor,  this  Thomas  Watkins,  though 
not  from  waste  or  indolence,  for  he  was  thrifty 
and  industrious — so  had  his  father  been  before 
him;  but  his  goods  were  taken  from  him.  Not 
literally  pillaged,  you  understand,  but  taken 
legally:  taxes,  direct  and  indirect,  tithes  and 
rentals.  All  lawful  and  right.  The  royal 
courts,  with  eminent  royal  judges,  had  decided 
so. 

Things  were  grievous,  indeed,  but  Thomas 
Watkins  was  a  loyal  subject  and  a  good 
churchman.  He  hoped  His  Highness  would 
soon  become  more  considerate;  at  any  rate  it 
was  wrong  to  take  up  arms  against  one's  king. 
He  prayed  God  daily  to  guide  and  direct  their 
Royal  Sovereign  and  to  replenish  him  with  the 
grace  of  His  Holy  Spirit.  So  did  ten  thou 
sand  other  loyal  subjects.  There  were  fanat 
ics  and  Puritans  who  preached  resistance,  but 
that  was  sinful.  The  church  taught  submis- 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  107 

sion,  the  bishops  and  abbots  taught  it;  God 
himself  admonished,  "to  be  in  subjection  to  the 
powers  that  be,"  and  "to  render  tribute  to 
Cassar." 

True,  this  tribute  was  heavy;  the  king  was 
demanding  fabulous  sums,  was  multiplying  his 
arbitrary  proclamations,  increasing  these  royal 
courts,  which  were  authorizing  more  "imposi 
tions."  But  what  could  be  done?  The  sanc 
tity  of  the  courts  must  not  be  questioned,  nor 
could  the  king  be  taken  to  account.  He  was 
the  ruler  appointed  by  God. 

What  God,  asked  the  soul,  and  what  courts, 
these  Royal  Exchequers  and  Star  Chamber 
things,  shrines  of  justice,  established  to  give 
injustice  a  legal  foundation,  filled  with  busy, 
subtle  serpents  of  the  law,  who  would  vend 
either  truth  or  fallacy,  before  whom  the  cour 
ageous  John  Hamilton  was  arraigned  and  con 
demned  ?  What  a  farce,  what  a  travesty !  And 
this  ecclesiastic  court  of  High  Commission, 
which  was  making  blankets  of  church  dogmas 
to  cover  temporal  rottenness,  which  was  using 
church  creed  to  support  falsehood! 

These  things,  however,  did  not  shake  the 
faith  of  Thomas  Watkins.  He  was  a  sober, 
orthodox  man,  who  believed  in  conformity  and 


108  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

the  established  church ;  who  accepted  the  litany 
and  the  prayer-book,  took  the  "communion," 
observed  his  fast  days,  contributed  his  "Peter's 
pence,"  paid  his  parish  tax — a  devout,  law- 
abiding  citizen,  subject  of  James  I  of  England. 

His  landlord  often  dealt  right  harshly  with 
him,  for  though  he  was  a  freeman,  vassal  to  no 
one,  still  the  condition  of  his  tenancy  made  him 
very  dependent,  and  the  landlord  was  a  master 
in  every  sense  but  name.  Watkins  must  leave 
his  own  fields  or  neglect  his  own  meager  har 
vest  at  the  beck  and  call  of  this  owner  of  the 
ground.  And  slight  was  his  recourse,  no  mat 
ter  what  the  exaction,  or  how  roughly  he  was 
used. 

"Damn  you,  Watkins,"  his  noble  landlord 
would  say,  "this  is  a  devilish  crop.  Next  year 
you  will  do  better,  or  get  nothing,  you  scurvy, 
clod-pated  rascal.  I  have  a  mind  now  to  turn 
you  over  to  the  gaoler  for  debt." 

Watkins  knew  the  horrible  condition  of  a 
debtor  in  the  English  jails,  so  worked  the 
harder.  His  was  a  life  filled  with  privation 
and  hardship,  but  he  had  become  accustomed  to 
it.  Laws  hampered  him  on  every  side:  church 
laws  in  profusion,  laws  of  state,  royal  game 
laws,  taxes,  tithes  and  rentals.  It  is  difficult  to 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  109 


Bowed  by  the  weight  of  centuries  he  leans  upon  his  hoe 


110  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

understand  how  he  maintained  his  steadfast 
loyalty.  Nor  was  he  the  only  Thomas  Wat- 
kins  in  the  kingdom.  There  were  thousands  of 
others  just  like  him,  even  more  so — men  who 
fought  and  gave  their  lives  for  their  king  after 
he  had  proven  himself  a  more  ruthless  tyrant 
than  James  I. 

To  the  soul  of  Thaddeus,  with  its  memories 
and  its  love  of  freedom,  this  was  an  abominable 
existence.  These  oppressive  laws  were  unbear 
able.  It  could  read  their  unjust  aim  and  ob 
ject,  could  see  the  vicious  purpose  that  begot 
them.  Laws  which  embodied  no  moral  obliga 
tion,  the  which,  rather,  was  a  human  crime  to 
observe.  But  it  seemed  unable  to  interpret 
these  things  to  Watkins.  Long  obedience  and 
religion  had  Thomas  Watkins  subdued.  Pos 
sibly,  too,  the  soul  may  not  have  been  putting 
forth  all  the  resolute  persistence  it  had  once 
been  capable  of — continued  suppression  will 
have  its  effect,  even  upon  a  soul. 

The  burden  of  man  was  heavy  here  in  Brit 
ain,  but  it  was  not  a  comparison  to  the  condi 
tion  that  existed  on  the  continent  of  Europe. 
The  soul  saw  there  the  toiling  millions  without 
a  vestige  of  liberty  left.  The  iron  rulers  had 
robbed  the  struggling  masses  of  every  human 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  111 

right,  had  sunk  them  into  ignorance,  poverty 
and  degradation. 

And  now  this  striving,  exhausted  body  of  the 
human  race  had  grasped  religion,  that  Chris 
tian  cult,  and  it  had  spread  among  them  like  an 
epidemic  of  madness. 

For  all  the  occult  things  of  nature,  which 
had  puzzled  man  since  first  he  began  to  think, 
they  found  in  it  an  answer.  All  the  supersti 
tious  fears,  brood  of  ignorance,  which  had 
haunted  him  through  his  savage  days,  it  solved 
for  them.  All  their  hope  of  salvation,  their 
chance  of  future  reward  and  possibility  to 
escape  eternal  damnation,  was  in  it  explained. 
They  accepted  it  bodily  without  inspection,  as 
positive  truth,  conclusive,  without  doubt,  and 
clung  to  it  with  the  tenacity  of  desperation. 

It  penetrated  their  minds,  occupied  by  little 
rival  learning,  like  the  roots  of  a  canker,  and 
poisoned  them  one  against  the  other. 

Every  man's  hand  wras  against  his  neighbor 
of  opposite  faith.  The  divine  teaching  of  love 
and  charity  was  all  obscured  in  the  "Thou 
shalts"  and  the  "Thou  shalt  nots."  There  was 
absolutely  no  toleration  and  no  quarter.  They 
turned,  in  their  down-trodden  condition,  to 
smiting  one  another.  The  miserable  state  into 


112  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

which  their  rulers  had  sunk  them  was  multi 
plied  a  hundredfold. 

Champions  of  despotism,  like  Louis  XIV  of 
France  and  Charles  V  of  Spain,  shifted  these 
masses  of  fanaticism  and  ignorance  from  one 
part  of  Europe  to  the  other,  wiping  out  resist 
ance,  intending  to  break  the  spirit  of  all,  so 
completely  that  they  never  again  could  rise  in 
opposition  to  despotic  sway. 

If  civil  dungeons  had  grown  dark  and  high 
in  England,  they  were  of  colossal  blackness  on 
the  Continent.  Men,  women  and  children  in 
thousands  crowded  their  moldy  darkness.  Tens 
of  thousands  perished  on  scaffold  and  on 
fagot  pile.  Such  a  deplorable  condition  of  hu 
man  wretchedness  the  soul  had  not  yet  wit 
nessed  in  all  its  travel. 

Why  should  it  be?  These  were  signs  of 
dawn;  but  why  necessary  such  a  harsh  and 
cruel  awakening?  Could  not  the  course  of  hu 
man  events  unfold  less  barbarously?  Could 
not  mankind  adopt  these  new  conditions  with 
out  all  this  agony  and  sacrifice?  What  was  at 
fault?  Not  all  of  it  was  due  to  Hebrew  teach 
ing,  though  much  can  be  laid  with  justice  there. 
This  Bible  taught  too  many  things  besides  love 
and  charity.  And  coming  as  it  had  when  hu- 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  113 

manity  was  so  distraught,  they  had  not  the 
mental  strength  to  separate  good  from  bad,  but 
assimilated  all,  and  that  which  was  corrupt  out 
weighed  the  little  that  was  good. 

On  society  its  influence  was  banefully  detri 
mental.  All  the  lofty  ideas  and  learning  which 
had  come  from  Greece  and  Alexandria,  all  the 
experiences  of  the  human  race,  all  the  obvious 
facts  of  life,  were  set  at  naught  before  the  dog 
matic  statements  of  this  Book.  Its  teaching 
paralyzed  social  co-operation,  disjointed  the  in 
terests  of  people.  Its  fierce  idealism  stamped 
human  effort  but  weakness,  human  virtues  but 
sin,  human  reason  but  folly. 

Its  effect  upon  the  character  of  the  individ 
ual  was  equally  as  bad.  No  cannibal  ever 
cooked  a  captive  with  one-half  the  savage  zeal 
that  Catholic,  Calvinist,  or  Puritan  burned 
rival  converts.  Human  feeling  and  pity  fell 
before  the  stern  injunctions  of  this  Holy  Book, 
and  the  squire  or  parish  father,  who  would  have 
shrunk  from  conscious  cruelty,  looked  ruthless 
ly  on  as  the  torturers  ran  the  needles  into  the 
witch's  flesh,  swam  her  in  the  witch's  pool,  or 
hurried  her  to  the  witch's  stake. 

Thus  the  soul  surveyed  the  struggle  of  his 
fellow-souls.  Thomas  Watkins  saw  mainly 


114  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

England,  and  but  only  part  of  that.  Upon 
the  coronation  of  Charles  I,  times  grew  still 
more  troubled  there.  These  odious,  unnatural 
laws  began  to  prick  more  keenly  on  every  side. 
His  steadfast  loyalty  began  to  waver. 

He  heard  many  rumors  in  town  and  tavern 
about  the  new  world  in  the  West,  where  were 
peace,  freedom  and  security.  The  hills  of 
Devon  and  the  meadow-lands  of  Kent  began 
to  lose  their  attractiveness,  began  to  have  a 
rigid  look,  their  beauty  blighted  by  the  inhu- 
manness  of  man.  His  parish  home  began  to 
seem  but  a  poor  abiding  place.  The  parson 
preached,  "Man  that  is  born  of  woman  is  but 
of  few  days  and  full  of  trouble."  Watkins  and 
his  fellow-parishioners  listened  in  assent.  How 
foolish,  thought  the  soul.  Man,  the  most  fa 
vored  being  in  all  the  world,  whose  domains 
reach  from  East  to  West;  who  is  not  barred 
from  any  place  or  clime,  the  whole  earth  for 
his  heritage — her  peaceful  valleys  and  sweet 
pasture  lands  are  his ;  who  read  the  meaning  of 
her  smiling  spring  and  knew  the  beauty  of  her 
breaking  wave ;  beneath  whose  hand  the  desert 
blossomed  like  the  rose,  and  nature  opened 
wide  her  store  of  plenty — yet  he  would  make 
himself  most  miserable  of  all. 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  115 

Each  day  saw  Watkins  less  content.  Crowd 
ed  England  was  a  land  of  exile.  The  soul  was 
pining  for  the  West ;  now  that  there  was  a  new 
land  of  the  dipping  sun,  it  could  not  stay.  The 
westward-rolling  wave  had  always  borne  it, 
a  nameless  something  bound  it  in  its  sway. 
And  Thomas  began  to  share  the  yearning  of 
this  prisoner  within  his  bosom;  began  to  sus 
pect  that  all  these  exactions,  all  these  demands 
made  by  the  zealous  apostles  of  conservatism, 
were  not  wholly  right;  began  to  vaguely  see 
that  these  champions  of  established  customs, 
these  advocates  of  stability  in  existing  things, 
these  scrupulous  exactors  of  customary  forms, 
were  the  ones  who  profited  most  by  such  exist 
ing  conditions.  He  began  to  suspect  that  if 
this  abused  under-fabric  of  society  could  move 
out,  these  disdainful  nobles  might  be  left  sit 
ting  upon  empty  titles.  Yes,  he  faintly  began 
to  perceive  that  it  required  common  soldiers 
(toilers)  to  sustain  and  keep  from  emptiness 
the  titles  of  these  captain  nobles.  It  slowly 
dawned  upon  him  that  a  background  of  sable 
hue  was  positively  necessary  to  make  these 
lighter  spots  to  shine,  that  it  positively  re 
quired  an  extreme  of  wretchedness  and  pov- 


116  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

erty  to  furnish  and  display  an  extreme  of  in 
dolence  and  ease. 

Possibly  not  as  precisely  as  this  he  saw, — but 
he  saw  too  much  for  his  "clod-pated"  devout- 
ness.  He  could  not  longer  endure  the  murky 
background,  and,  besides,  there  was  this  calling 
from  the  West.  So  Thomas  Watkins  left 
the  Hampshire  fallows,  the  way  of  fortune 
through  an  unplowed  fell  to  follow. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LITTLE  time  has  passed  since  last  we  parted, 
possibly  two-hundred-odd  years  or  so,  but 
progress  has  been  rapid,  and  since  time  is  but 
the  measure  of  activity,  it  is  very  distant  from 
this  picture  in  the  New  World — already  old. 

Out  in  southern  Oregon,  tucked  away  among 
her  hills  of  pine  and  cedar,  is  the  little  town  of 
Woodville,  a  nosey  little  town  of  some  two 
hundred  houses,  sitting  beside  Willow  River,  a 
tributary  of  the  Mohawk.  Here  was  raised  an 
American  boy.  We  emphasize  American  to 
show  that  he  is  a  descendant  from  no  one  racial 
family,  but  could  enumerate  among  his  ances 
tors  Englishmen,  Frenchmen,  Danes,  Ger 
mans,  Romans,  Greeks,  and  more  yet,  if  you 
would  go  back  far  enough. 

His  name  was  Henry,  but  his  mother  called 
him  Hen;  so  did  nearly  everybody  else,  except 
ing — well,  excepting  somebody,  we  will  not 
say  who,  but  she  always  said  "Henry,"  be- 

117 


118  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

cause  she  thought  Hen  sounded  like  a  chicken. 
Her  father's  name  was  Hall,  and  he  ran  the 
grocery  store.  Hen,  however,  did  not  mind 
the  name  a  bit ;  that  is  to  say,  ordinarily  he  did 
not  mind  it,  but  on  special  days  and  Sundays, 
when  he  was  wearing  his  good  clothes,  he  liked 
to  be  called  Henry,  or  Henry  Oliver.  His  sec 
ond  name  was  Oliver. 

He  was  five  years  old,  and  had  just  two  be 
setting  sins:  he  was  always  trying  to  evade 
disagreeable  duties,  and  he  had  a  general  dis 
like  and  disapproval  of  rules  or  restrictions  of 
any  kind.  Of  course,  he  had  a  lot  of  other 
minor  faults — that  was  mostly  what  he  was 
made  up  of. 

For  one  thing,  he  was  always  playing  about 
the  river.  Time  and  time  again  his  mother  had 
cautioned  him  about  it. 

"Some  day,  Henry"  (she  always  called  him 
Henry  when  she  was  lecturing  him) ,  "if  you 
don't  mind  about  that  river  you  will  fall  in,  and 
then  I  guess  you  will  be  either  drowned — or 
willing  to  keep  away." 

Henry  listened  very  respectfully.  He  always 
listened  to  his  mother,  but  that  seemed  about 
all  there  was  to  it.  And  one  day,  sure  enough, 
he  did  fall  in,  but  that  was  not  till  he  was  six, 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  119 

and  he  was  pretty  strong  then.  He  caught 
hold  of  the  end  of  a  boat,  and,  though  his 
mother  screamed  and  clasped  her  hands  to  her 
breast,  he  got  out  all  right.  He  never  would 
have  fallen  in,  so  he  said,  if  she  hadn't  come 
around  and  scared  him  just  as  he  was  looking 
over. 

Well,  it  didn't  cure  him  of  the  habit  at  all ;  if 
anything,  it  made  him  worse.  It  was  on  Sat 
urday  when  he  fell  in — Saturday  always  was 
his  worst  day;  his  mother  often  said  she  just 
wished  there  was  school  every  day  in  the  week 
— and  by  Monday  morning  every  child  in  the 
Woodville  school  knew  about  Hen  Williams 
falling  into  the  river. 

He  derived  quite  a  deal  of  prominence  from 
it — the  first  bit  of  prominence  he  had  ever  at 
tained — but  he  was  not  trying  much  for  promi 
nence.  He  was  just  living,  truly  and  thor 
oughly  living  down  to  the  very  tip  of  his  toes, 
and  when  he  would  draw  his  lungs  full  of  that 
Oregon  air,  and  the  smell  of  pine-trees  would 
be  in  his  nose,  I  tell  you  it  was  good — you 
could  just  see  it. 

His  teacher  somehow  did  not  like  him  very 
well,  either,  but  that  was  not  Hen's  fault.  She 
was  twenty-eight  and  unmarried,  and  women 


120  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

are  supposed  to  be  rather  ill-natured  at  that 
age.  She  probably  could  not  help  it.  Hen 
never  made  any  more  noise  in  school  than  he 
could  possibly  help,  and  he  always  had  his  les 
son;  that  is,  he  always  had  as  much  of  it  as  he 
could  get  by  packing  the  book  about,  and  by 
his  mother  reading  to  him  while  he  was  un 
dressing  in  the  evening  and  while  he  was  eating 
his  breakfast  in  the  morning.  Which  things 
ought  certainly  to  be  sufficient  to  satisfy  any 
fair-minded  teacher. 

In  the  summer  there  was  no  school  at  Wood- 
ville;  then  it  was  that  it  took  nearly  all  of  Mrs. 
Williams'  time  to  watch  Hen.  He  was  the 
only  child,  and  she  often  remarked  that  it  was 
a  blessing,  because  she  believed  that  if  she  had 
one  more  she  would  be  in  the  insane  asylum. 

Hen,  however,  was  not  what  would  be  called 
a  wilfully  bad  boy ;  he  never  played  mean  tricks 
or  did  intentionally  bad  things ;  it  was  just  sim 
ply  that  he  had  to  keep  a-moving.  And  if 
Mrs.  Williams  had  often  to  look  for  him,  she 
always  knew  where  to  look, — which  in  itself  was 
some  consolation.  He  was  either  back  of 
Hall's  grocery  store,  or  over  in  Galegar's 
lot — they  had  a  pigeon  loft  there — or  else 
playing  in  the  Woodville  street,  the  whole 


Souls  of  the  Infinite 


121 


Hen 


122  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

length  of  which  she  could  see  from  her  door 
way;  or  there  was  one  other  place  where  he 
went,  and  this  was  the  place  which  worried  her 
most,  but  he  seldom  played  there  of  late,  be 
cause  he  could  get  no  one  to  accompany  him, 
all  the  neighbors'  children  having  been  forbid 
den  to  go.  Still,  if  the  afternoon  were  warm 
and  she  suspected  him  to  be  tired  of  play,  Mrs. 
Williams  would  always  take  a  chance  look  by 
the  river,  and  there  she  often  found  him 
stretched  out  on  the  grassy  bank,  asleep. 

He  always  got  woke  up  with  a  paddling, 
too;  not  very  hard  ones,  however,  because  Mrs. 
Williams  hated  to  punish  Hen,  and  Hen  knew 
it,  and,  in  spite  of  his  oft-repeated  offenses, 
there  was  no  boy  in  Woodville  loved  his  mother 
as  well  as  Hen  Williams  did.  They  would 
generally  have  one  of  their  long  walks  and 
talks  after  one  of  these  occurrences.  Hen  al 
ways  shared  with  his  mother  his  every  boyish 
thought,  and  Mrs.  Williams,  appreciating  to 
its  fullest  extent  that  close  intimacy  which  ex 
isted  between  her  and  her  boy,  would  fondly 
beam  upon  her  disobedient  little  son. 

But  once  or  twice  of  late  she  had  found  him, 
not  asleep,  but  just  lying  there,  looking  out 
into  the  river. 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  123 

"What  are  you  doing,  Hen?"  she  would  say. 

"Nuthun,  Dearest,"  (Dearest  was  the  name 
she  had  taught  this  boy  to  say,  and  she  loved 
to  hear  him  say  it.) 

And  he  wasn't,  just  kicking  his  toes  into  the 
dirt  and  looking.  But  the  soul  of  him  was,  for 
here  we  find  the  wandering  soul  that  we  have 
watched  for  eight  thousand  years. 

There  was  a  something  in  this  blue-eyed  boy 
that  had  roamed  the  wilds  of  Asia,  eight  thou 
sands  years  ago.  A  definite  something.  There 
is  in  you.  There  is  in  me.  The  mere  fact  that 
we  are  here  is  positive  proof.  You  are  the  di 
rect  material  continuation  of  a  vine  which  has 
trailed  its  tendrils  all  down  the  countless  ages 
since  man  first  began.  In  your  case  the  chain 
has  never  been  broken,  the  flame  has  never  gone 
out;  if  it  had,  you  wrould  not  be  here. 

Well,  Hen  attended  the  Woodville  school 
until  he  was  fourteen,  and,  through  the  varied 
admonition  of  his  various  teachers,  and  the  con 
stant  application  of  his  mother,  he  was  then 
ready  for  the  academy  at  Millsburg.  Of 
course,  a  little  of  the  credit  may  have  been  due 
to  him,  since  he  had  to  learn  the  stuff,  no  mat 
ter  who  helped  him,  and,  too,  he  had  been  really 
studious  for  the  last  year.  So  his  trunk  was 


Souls  of  the  Infinite 

packed  and  a  thousand  little  things  made 
ready.  There  were  his  new  suit  of  clothes,  and 
his  clean  linen  all  nicely  starched,  for  he  was 
to  wear  a  white  collar  and  a  necktie  now. 
There  were  warm  flannel  underwear,  home- 
sewed,  two  pairs  of  shoes,  woolen  stockings, 
bedroom  slippers,  towels  and  handkerchiefs — 
a  whole  trunk  packed  just  as  full  as  it  could 
possibly  be  squeezed  together — besides  a  lot  of 
other  things  which  had  to  be  put  in  a  hand- 
satchel.  There  was  some  toilet  soap,  a  hair 
brush,  a  scarf  for  his  neck,  a  small  pair  of  scis 
sors  and  a  nail-file,  a  spool  of  thread,  and  some 
extra  buttons.  Mrs.  Williams  had  been  pre 
paring  for  it  all  summer. 

The  Millsburg  school  was  a  boarding  school. 
It  was  110  miles  from  Woodville,  ten  miles  by 
stage  and  one  hundred  miles  by  the  railroad, 
and  the  school  kept  from  September  to  June. 

Hennie  had  never  been  away  from  home  be 
fore,  and  it  was  the  hardest  thing  for  Mrs. 
Williams  to  reconcile  herself  to  it.  Here  was 
her  boy,  her  only  boy,  whose  youthful  inclina 
tions  she  had  shaped  and  watched  so  carefully 
for  fourteen  years,  whose  open  mind  she  read 
like  a  printed  page,  and  found  nothing  there 
save  what  she  had  planted  and  tended.  He 


'Souls  of  the  Infinite.  125 

was  going  to  leave  her.  Others  would  watch 
and  tend  this  pliant,  boyish  mind,  which  she 
had  striven  to  keep  pure  and  noble,  which  was 
so  dear  to  her.  Would  they  be  as  careful? 
What  all  would  be  planted  there?  Would  he 
be  the  same  when  he  returned?  She  felt  he 
wouldn't;  Hennie  could  not  always  be  just  her 
boy;  but  it  was  awfully  hard  to  feel  the  first 
cutting  of  those  tender  ties.  To  feel  that  this 
little  boyish  shoot  of  future  manhood,  which 
she  had  fashioned,  was  going  out  to  meet  the 
world,  the  great,  heartless  world,  to  be  tried  by 
its  relentless  methods!  Would  it  be  strong? 
Would  it  be  good  and  true?  Or  might  it  be 
broken  in  pieces  and  go  down?  Who  could  tell 
her?  Who  could  give  her  mother's  heart  assur 
ance? 

When  Hennie  kissed  her  at  the  station  and 
said,  "Now,  Dearest,  don't  you  cry,"  and  put 
his  arms  around  her  neck, — but  she  was  already 
crying,  and  there  were  other  tears  besides  her 
own,  although  he  strove  to  hide  it,  that  dried 
on  Hennie's  mother's  cheek,  that  day  the  stage 
left  Woodville. 

Millsburg  was  a  county  seat.  It  had  quite  a 
business  center,  with  rows  of  office  buildings, 
and  spread  its  residential  skirts  in  irregular 


126  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

ruffles  round  about.  Just  on  the  eastern  edge, 
occupying  a  wooded  campus,  was  the  acad 
emy,  adorned  on  the  one  side  by  an  imposing 
ladies'  hall  for  the  girls,  and  unadorned  on  the 
other  by  a  ramshackle  wooden  building,  almost 
pushed  off  the  lot,  for  the  boys.  Here  arrived 
the  nucleus  of  a  load  of  mother's  anxiety — Hen 
Williams. 

But  much  of  her  forebodings  were  unfound 
ed  ;  she  had  built  better  than  she  knew ;  and  as 
soon  as  the  timidity  of  new  surroundings  had 
worn  off,  Hen  Williams  began  to  show  the  ef 
fects  of  that  training — a  training  which  made 
for  strong  individuality  and  for  personal  re 
sponsibility. 

Hen  looked  the  buildings  over  as  soon  as  his 
time  would  permit,  subconsciously  comparing 
them  with  other  things  he  knew.  He  also  gave 
the  campus  quite  an  ample  inspection.  Ad 
joining  the  town  side  of  it  stood  the  Millsburg 
court-house,  a  large  stone  building  with  the 
blindfolded  Goddess  of  Justice  standing  over 
the  main  entrance.  The  naked  sword,  in  her 
right  hand,  looked  very  heavy  and  strong,  but 
the  balances,  which  she  poised  in  her  left,  had 
become  broken.  Hen  remarked  that  it  was 
probably  the  effect  of  the  wind,  but  to  the  soul 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  127 

of  Thaddeus  within  him  the  picture  appeared 
quite  symbolical. 

The  school  took  Hen  in  hand,  or,  rather, 
Hen  took  the  school  in  hand,  for  his  last  year 
at  Woodville  proved  to  be  only  a  sample  of 
what  he  could  do  with  schools.  Before  the  first 
semester  was  over  he  had  this  academy  all  sized 
up,  catalogued  and  relegated  to  its  proper  cor 
ner  in  the  sphere  of  his  activities.  His  mind 
was  expanding  by  leaps  and  bounds;  that 
soul,  which  wre  have  known  before,  was  crowd 
ing  again.  Here,  also,  evinced  itself  the  per 
sistent  application  which  was  in  his  nature,  a 
transitional  gift  from  his  mother. 

One  thing,  however,  served  to  hinder  him 
somewhat,  and  that  was  his  disregard  for  estab 
lished  customs  and  for  laws ;  especially  laws  for 
which  he  could  see  no  reason.  This  often 
bumped  him  up  against  very  hard  things.  But 
bumps  did  not  stop  him;  they  only  served  in 
some  cases  to  vary  his  direction  a  little.  Where 
he  derived  this  determinate  dislike  for  laws  his 
mother  could  never  figure  out.  It  sometimes 
even  carried  him  to  extremes. 

By  the  time  his  four  academic  years  were 
finished  and  he  was  back  in  Woodville,  we  have 
quite  a  flourishing  young  man,  nineteen  years 


128  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

old,  with  a  good  breadth  of  intellectual  compre 
hension.  Nellie  Hall  was  very  proud  of  him. 
His  mother  still  called  him  Hen,  however,  and, 
although  he  was  much  different,  the  change  had 
been  so  gradual  she  had  hardly  noticed  it. 
The  new  things  which  had  developed  had 
more  than  compensated  for  the  things  which 
had  been  lost.  He  was  her  Hennie  just  the 
same,  and  just  as  dear,  and  he  listens  just  as 
respectfully  if  she  lectures  him — possibly, 
though,  in  a  more  patronizing  attitude.  Still, 
Mrs.  Williams  did  not  see  it. 

The  little  town  was  just  the  same  and  just  as 
nosey.  The  same  old  paths  were  by  the  river, 
and  if  only  you  could  have  lingered  with  the 
two  that  wander  there  again!  If  only  you 
could  have  felt  the  depth  of  that  mother's  soul! 
She  had  forgotten,  that  Time's  uncaring  hand 
was  robbing  her  of  her  boy.  She  only  saw  the 
same  flaxen-headed  little  youngster,  and  with 
the  same  beautiful  mother's  earnestness  she 
counseled  him. 

On  this  summer  came  the  third  event  in 
Hen's  career:  he  must  go  away  to  school 
again;  and  this  time  he  was  going  much  far 
ther  away,  for  he  had  great  ambitions.  Mrs. 
Williams,  however,  did  not  grieve  so,  because 


The  same  old  paths  were  by  the  river 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  129 

she  felt  more  confident  in  her  son,  and  then, 
too,  she  had  become  somewhat  accustomed  to 
the  substitution  of  "letters  from  Henry."  Still, 
she  felt  it  real  hard,  because  San  Francisco  was 
a  long  way  off,  and  he  would  not  be  able  to 
come  home  for  his  vacations.  But  she  wanted 
her  Hen  to  be  a  great  man;  so  it  had  to  be. 
Four  years  would  soon  slip  by. 

When  Henry  Williams  took  up  his  residence 
in  San  Francisco,  San  Francisco  did  not  know 
it.  Nobody  knew  it,  save  possibly  the  old 
woman  from  whom  he  rented  the  stuffy  little 
room  on  Mission  Street — himself  and  some 
body  away  up  north  among  the  hills  of  Oregon. 
To  these  latter  it  was  quite  an  important  event ; 
to  the  old  woman  on  Mission  Street  it  only 
amounted  to  two  dollars  a  week.  Of  course, 
she  was  very  anxious  to  help  a  young  man 
through  school.  She  would  help  a  young  man, 
or  an  old  man,  through  school  or  through  any 
thing  else,  if  they  would  pay  her  just  two  dol 
lars  a  week  for  her  dirty  rooms. 

She  had  a  very  red  nose,  and  Hen  observed 
that  she  was  more  superfluous  with  her  encour 
agements  when  her  nose  was  the  reddest,  and 
quite  grouchy  when  it  was  not  so  red.  She  told 
him  of  some  "byes"  who  used  to  room  with  her 


130  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

who  always  called  her  mother.  Hen  said  yes, 
but  it  didn't  bring  to  his  mind  any  suggestion 
of  Dearest,  not  the  faintest.  It  only  made 
him  think  of  a  beer-bucket. 

Our  village  boy — just  turning  twenty,  full 
of  future  hopes — was  here  in  San  Francisco, 
that  great  western  metropolis  with  its  four  hun 
dred  thousand  souls.  As  he  walked  down  her 
crowded  streets  he  was  thinking,  but  he  could 
turn  over  nothing  in  his  brain  to  compare,  to 
accurately  measure  this  by,  for  he  had  never 
seen  its  like  before.  He  did  not  feel  lost,  how 
ever;  rather  he  felt  quite  at  ease,  intuitively  a 
part  of  it.  The  exterior  was  new  to  his  senses; 
but  underneath  his  mind's  surface,  as  it  were, 
there  seemed  to  be  a  pulse-beat  in  harmony 
with  the  hidden  soul  of  this  throbbing  city.  He 
stopped  at  the  corner  where  Kearney  came  into 
Market;  the  tall  stone  buildings,  rearing  aloft 
their  rugged  shapes  on  either  side,  shadowed  in 
his  mind  a  canyon  picture.  Yes,  a  real  canyon, 
and  there  was  a  stream  flowing  through  it — a 
turbulent,  struggling  stream,  uniting  with 
other  turbulent,  struggling  streams,  and  flow 
ing  on  and  on.  Where  was  it  flowing? 
Whither  was  it  hastening? 

The  soul  had  looked  upon  that  self -same 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  131 

stream  many  thousand  times  before,  that 
stream  of  humanity.  It  had  drifted  with  it, 
from  the  shores  of  the  Pacific,  ages  ago,  when 
it  was  dark  and  muddy.  It  had  whirled  and 
eddied,  in  seething  torrents  and  in  murmuring 
rivulets,  until  now  it  was  splashing  the  shores 
of  the  Pacific  again.  The  stream  was  always 
flowing  on;  still,  it  was  always  here  and  always 
the  self-same  stream,  whether  in  Nineveh  or 
San  Francisco. 

The  school  did  not  commence  for  two  months 
yet,  so  Hen  got  himself  a  position  as  clerk  in  a 
hotel.  He  was  going  to  help  himself  a  little, 
for  although  Dearest 's  letters  always  brought 
something  besides  love  and  courage,  still  his 
father,  to  put  it  mildly,  had  never  been  much 
of  a  success,  and  this  schooling  in  San  Fran 
cisco  was  expensive. 

The  first  morning  he  came  down  to  work,  the 
proprietor,  old  Mr.  Oversight,  introduced  him 
to  his  duties,  also  to  a  young  woman  at  the  desk, 
Grace  Winters,  who  was  to  help  him.  The 
hotel  was  the  St.  Valentine,  a  very  nice-appear 
ing  place,  though  possibly  not  the  most  moral, 
if  measured  by  the  standard  of  this  place  and 
time.  Modern  morals,  you  understand,  have 
been  made  to  cover  a  great  many;  customs, 


132  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

which,  in  truth,  have  nothing  to  do  with  ethics 
of  right  and  wrong.  It  would  be  more  accu 
rate  to  say  the  St.  Valentine  was  a  very  moral 
place,  but  not  in  keeping  with  certain  customs 
of  the  day.  This,  however,  did  not  worry 
Hen;  he  was  not  down  there  to  designate  the 
customs  of  San  Francisco. 

Grace  proved  to  be  a  very  sociable  girl.  Be 
fore  the  first  week  was  past,  she  had  asked  him 
every  possible  question  about  Oregon,  Wood- 
ville,  the  academy  at  Millsburg,  even  down  to 
his  present  room  on  Mission  Street,  and  Hen 
was  just  about  as  willing  to  tell  her,  because  he 
had  seen  few  people  to  talk  to  here  in  San 
Francisco,  and  was  a  bit  lonesome.  She  also 
told  him  that  she  had  come  from  Tennessee, 
and  that  she  had  been  in  that  office  a  year. 

Hen  Williams  fell  into  the  particular  of  the 
St.  Valentine,  and  into  the  general  of  San 
Francisco,  like  a  rain-drop  into  the  sea.  It  was 
not  that  he  was  peculiarly  adapted  for  these 
things,  but  more  the  absence  of  any  peculiarity. 
He  was  a  very  average  fellow,  and  the  city 
meets  the  average  best.  The  city,  also,  with 
her  average  crowding  average,  serves  to  bring 
out  that  which  is  strongest  in  a  man,  and  this  is 
what  it  began  to  do  with  Hen. 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  133 

He  had  considerable  time  here  to  read,  and 
such  an  exhaustive  public  library  from  which 
to  borrow  books;  so  read  he  did  every  minute 
that  he  could  spare,  sometimes  hardly  taking 
time  to  sleep.  There  had  been  one  ambition  in 
his  life,  a  university  education,  which  he  had 
been  compelled  to  forego;  so  he  was  going  to 
compensate  for  it,  as  far  as  possible,  by  read 
ing.  He  had  Henry  George,  or  John  Stuart 
Mill,  or  somebody  else,  always  sticking  under 
the  counter,  and  an  abridged,  chronological  en 
cyclopedia  glued  to  his  hip-pocket. 

"Henry  Williams,"  said  Grace  one  after 
noon,  "will  you  take  your  nose  out  of  that  book 
for  a  minute  and  let  us  talk  a  bit,  now  that  it  is 
quiet?  I  tell  you  that  you  will  get  positively 
dippy  if  you  don't  quit  that." 

Grace  was  young  and  a  little  romantic,  and 
she  always  wanted  to  talk. 

"Are  you  still  slumming  over  there  on  Mis 
sion  Street?  I  honestly  can't  see  how  you 
stand  that  place.  Have  you  got  to  calling  the 
old  woman  'Mother'  yet?" 

"Well,  didn't  I  say  I  was  going  to  move? — 
only  I  can't  seem  to  find  the  time  to  look  for 
another  place,  and  besides,  I  hardly  know 
where  to  look." 


134  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

"Well,  I  can  tell  you  where,  and  have  said 
so  for  the  past  five  weeks,  if  you  would  just 
retain  consciousness  long  enough  to  listen.  I 
know  this  'Frisco  town  as  well  as  I  know  the 
St.  Valentine.  On  Eddy  Street,  the  room  I 
have — May  Sutton  and  I  took  it  together — we 
pay  just  six  dollars  between  us,  and  it  is  a 
dandy  room,  with  a  big  bay  window  and  hot 
and  cold  water;  but  May  is  going  back  to  her 
husband,  so  I  guess  I  will  have  to  give  it  up ; 
but  Rose  Ramsay  tells  me  there  is  just  a  splen 
did  place  over  on  Bush  Street,  so  I  am  going 
over  to  see  it." 

"Well,  when  you  are  over  there,  suppose 
you  look  around  for  me."  And  Hen's  nose 
went  back  into  the  book.  Grace  blotted  a  name 
or  two  in  the  register  and  looked  out  the  win 
dow.  That  seemed  satisfactory  to  her,  if  you 
would  judge  from  the  way  she  looked. 

Grace  Winters  was  a  real  good,  sociable  fel 
low,  and  while  she  perhaps  never  thought  so 
deeply  about  things,  city  life,  and  her  own 
welfare,  had  taught  her  to  inspect  the  surface 
very  carefully.  And  as  the  surface  is  all  we 
ever  come  in  contact  with,  she  probably  did 
just  as  well  as  folks  who  try  to  go  deeper.  She 
looked  quite  young,  possibly  nineteen  or  so. 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  135 

But  girls'  ages  are  very  uncertain  things.  Hen 
never  even  chanced  a  speculation  at  them;  he 
had  other  things  to  do.  She  had  been  married 
once,  but  that  might  have  happened  had  she 
been  only  sixteen.  The  soul  of  Thaddeus  liked 
her  right  well.  She  was  honest ;  not  so  much  in 
what  she  said,  but  in  what  she  did.  Her  ac 
tions  were  honest  actions,  and  her  heart  was 
good;  and  that  combination  alone  was  always 
safe,  for  "place  or  show,  if  not  for  a  nose." 
She  did  her  share  to  the  running  of  San  Fran 
cisco,  and  was  cheerful  about  it.  She  paid  her 
own  board-bill,  and  had  to  ask  no  one's  per 
mission  to  walk  down  the  street.  With  six 
days  for  business  and  a  Sunday  at  the  beach 
or  in  the  parks,  she  seemed  to  be  taking  about 
all  the  comforts  ordained  for  mortals  under  the 
then  existing  city  government. 

To  the  soul  this  appeared  to  be  the  more 
proper  place  for  woman — by  the  side  of  man, 
sharing  his  toil,  his  worries,  and  his  pleasures ; 
neither  beneath  him  nor  above  him,  but  a  hu 
man  being  like  himself.  It  had  seen  her  first 
his  drudging  slave,  because  she  was  weaker 
physically.  It  had  seen  her  kept  hidden  and 
secluded  like  so  much  plunder  to  be  enjoyed 
as  occasion  suited  by  the  possessor.  It  had 


136  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

seen  her  housed  up  and  cherished  like  a  deli 
cate  plant,  or  like  a  superhuman  thing,  not  to 
be  contaminated  by  the  vulgar  world  of  men. 
But  in  all  these  places  she  had  not  developed, 
but  had  been  just  what  the  compulsory  condi 
tions  considered  her. 

Why  was  she  different  from  man?  She  was 
made  from  the  same  clay,  the  same  blood  ran 
through  her  veins,  she  had  the  same  likes  and 
dislikes,  was  moved  by  the  same  emotions,  and 
under  equal  opportunity  would  be  his  equal. 
Why,  then,  make  her  different  by  the  imposi 
tion  of  different  conditions?  Why  have  one- 
half  of  the  human  race  to  own  the  other  half? 
The  one  to  place  his  name  upon  the  other,  to 
own  it  and  to  be  a  law  unto  it,  and  it  to  be  a 
burden  unto  him  ?  Conditions  can  make  a  beg 
gar  or  a  prince.  Why,  then,  these  unnatural 
and  difficult  things  maintain?  Why  not  stand 
her  by  his  side,  his  yoke-fellow,  with  an  even 
yoke? 

But  man  is  blind,  and  customs  of  the  stupid 
past  are  bands  of  iron.  He  has,  from  his  mag 
nanimity,  granted  her  many  of  the  privileges 
which  the  Almighty  scattered  here  for  all.  But 
still  he  needs  must  domineer  her,  must  confine 
her,  must  pass  upon  her  outgoings  and  her  in- 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  137 

comings,  must  chastise  her  if  she  wears  his 
clothes  or  if  she  wears  not  enough  to  suit  him, 
must  exclude  her  from  certain  fields  or  stamp 
her  an  impostor  if  she  strives  to  enter;  in  a 
word,  he  has  not  yet  recognized  that  she  is  the 
other  half,  the  equal,  a  free  moral  agent  like 
himself,  to  whom  it  is  not  given  him  to  grant, 
or  to  withhold,  but  who  stands  even  as  he  be 
fore  their  common  Maker. 

By  the  time  his  two  months  were  up  and 
school  was  ready,  Hen  had  become  thoroughly 
familiar  with  operating  the  St.  Valentine,  also 
quite  well  acquainted  with  a  great  many  other 
things  incidental  to  hotel  life  in  a  big  city.  Old 
Mr.  Oversight  appreciated  his  efficiency  much, 
and  offered  him  evening  hours,  at  a  small  wrage, 
so  as  to  keep  him  there.  Grace  Winters  more 
than  liked  him ;  you  could  tell  it  by  the  way  she 
fussed  around  when  no  one  was  in  the  office. 
She  had  found  him  a  room  on  Bush  Street;  how 
close  it  was  to  her  own  Hen  never  said.  But 
they  always  came  down  the  street  for  their 
breakfast  together,  and  oftentimes  you  might 
have  heard  Grace  scolding  a  little,  in  an  under 
tone,  about  him  staying  so  late  at  the  library. 

"Hennie  Williams,"  she  would  say,  "you 
might  just  as  well  be  running  around  town  till 


138  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

twelve  o'clock  at  night.  I  don't  know,  for  sure, 
if  you  are  at  the  library." 

But  of  course  she  did,  and  she  knew  that  he 
was  reading  there,  and  she  knew  that  if  ever 
they  had  an  afternoon  to  go  to  the  park,  or 
anywhere  else,  she  had  the  awfullest  time — she 
just  had  to  search  him  to  see  that  he  didn't  have 
one  of  those  musty  old  books  sticking  about 
him  somewhere. 

By  the  time  three  winters  had  rolled  around 
and  Hen  was  finishing  his  junior  year,  he  was 
as  poor  as  a  crow.  He  was  wearing  glasses, 
too ;  not  that  his  eyes  were  so  very  bad,  but  that 
one  of  the  doctors  had  advised  it  as  a  precau 
tionary  measure.  He  had  been  in  school 
twenty-seven  months  and  read  library  books 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  days  out  of  each 
year.  He  was  beginning  now  to  think  he  could 
see  the  end.  He  was  beginning  to  have  day 
dreams  of  an  office  in  Millsburg  and  Dearest 
and  himself  comfortably  arranged.  Just  one 
more  year,  he  had  told  her  in  his  letter. 

He  had  left  the  St.  Valentine  now  and  was 
doing  some  assistant  work  in  the  City  Health 
Department.  Grace  Winters  was  also  clerk 
ing  in  the  Health  Department. 

This  was  the  spring  that  San  Francisco  and 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  139 

the  nation  were  torn  with  the  throes  of  such 
a  heated  political  struggle.  Hen  and  Ned 
Wayfield,  a  classmate  and  chum  of  his,  did 
lieutenant  work  for  the  Boss  over  on  the  South 
Side.  There  was  where  the  'Frisco  struggle 
centered.  There  the  soul  of  Thaddeus  watched 
the  same  old  system  of  oppression  framed  up; 
the  same  old  equipment  for  fraudulent  ex 
ploitation  prepared ;  the  same  old  propaganda, 
though  maneuvered  with  different  tactics, 
which  it  had  watched  since  first  the  history  of 
people  began ;  the  same  thing  which  champions 
of  despotism  had  used  to  maintain  their  tyr- 
rany  in  Europe;  the  same  thing  which  the  an 
cient  Roman  nobles  had  used  to  defeat  the  good 
of  Italy;  the  same  thing  which  Xerxes  had 
manipulated  upon  the  banks  of  the  Hellespont 
— the  control  and  perversion  for  private  gain 
of  the  latent  power  in  the  ignorant  masses. 
And  this  was  not  only  so  in  San  Francisco; 
every  soul  which  had  the  ability  to  see,  saw  it 
throughout  the  nation — yes,  throughout  the 
world.  Wherever  there  was  ignorance  suffi 
cient  for  a  movement,  unscrupulous  hands 
were  using  it. 

Hen's  senior  year  was  his  hardest  year  of 
all;  but  the  encouragements  were  likewise  the 


140  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

greatest,  so  he  kept  to  it.  He  had  had  an  abun 
dance  of  reserve  energy  when  he  landed  in  San 
Francisco,  but  now  the  supply  was  beginning 
to  get  low.  Grace  said  she  thought  he  was  try 
ing  to  read  every  book  in  the  San  Francisco 
Public  Library.  What  he  was  trying  to  do 
was  to  finish  his  course  of  reading  before  he  got 
out  where  there  were  no  such  facilities. 

As  spring  came  on,  it  found  him  weary  of 
the  struggle.  He  was  longing  for  the  end. 
His  ambition  seemed  to  be  slipping  its  hold. 
Dearest  was  sick  at  home,  but  she  said  in  her 
letters  that  she  would  be  better  soon,  and  for 
him  not  to  come,  but  to  stay  and  finish.  But 
Dearest's  letters  were  not  written  by  herself; 
she  was  too  ill;  and  so  they  brought  no  courage 
with  them.  He  was  troubled.  Things  upset 
him.  He  did  not  seem  to  have  his  old-time 
grip. 

He  had  been  for  more  than  four  years  in  San 
Francisco,  and  he  had  passed  the  time  by  min 
utes.  He  had  read  with  diligence,  everything, 
from  Homer  and  Pythagoras  to  Hume  and 
Huxley. 

At  graduation  time  he  took  the  ex's  all  and 
passed.  He  was  twenty- four  now,  and,  besides 
his  profession,  had  dug  out  a  liberal  education 


Sauls  of  the  Infinite  141 

that  put  him  not  behind,  in  mental  grasp,  a 
man  from  Yale  or  Harvard. 

The  June  commencements  came  on  and  fin 
ished.  Hen  Williams  stepped  out  graduated, 
but  a  different  man.  For  four  days  he  had 
been  a  different  man.  His  diploma  was  in  his 
pocket;  but  something  else  was  also  in  his 
pocket — a  letter  with  an  ebon  border.  Dearest 
was  dead. 

Ned  Wayfield  came  past  him  on  the  steps 
and  shook  his  hand.  "Well,  old  man,  I  sup 
pose  you  are  going  home." 

But  was  he?  Where  was  home?  He  wasn't 
going  anywhere. 

He  walked  slowly  down  to  the  city  office, 
climbed  up  on  a  stool  in  the  private  laboratory, 
and  there  he  sat.  The  clock  upon  the  shelf 
ticked  slowly  off  the  seconds.  What  was  the 
use  of  things?  Where  was  he  going?  He  did 
not  care.  There  was  not  a  single  tie,  nor  one 
attraction,  that  drew  him  anywhere. 

The  summer  twilight  began  to  settle  round, 
but  still  he  sat.  He  was  so  wholly  aimless,  so 
disconsolate,  the  soul  within  his  bosom  began 
to  murmur. 

"Well,"  Henry  said,  "since,  then,  you  are 
my  soul,  you  of  the  many  fortunes,  perhaps 


142  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

that  you  can  tell.  Perhaps  that  you  can  an 
swer  why  I  feel  this  awful  vanity,  this  complete 
discouragement,  as  one  awakening  without  a 
purpose  here.  Have  I  labored  wrong  ?  Have  I 
mistaken  been  and  vainly  cast  with  this  one 
throw  which  life  allots  us  here?  What  seek  I 
now? 

The  soul  said,  "No;  you  have  but  only  partly 
lost.  Remember  this,  however:  There  is  no 
one  essential  thing  which,  when  attained,  will 
happiness  assure. 

"Life  goes  not  thus,  for  I  have  traveled  far, 
and  many  knots  have  seen  unraveled  by  the 
road. 

"Know  this:  That  mortals  all  seek  happi 
ness,  but  seek  it  most  blindly,  knowing  not. 
Some  in  the  distant  future;  some  in  delusions 
rare.  But  'tis  not  afar,  nor  yonder,  but  at  your 
feet.  'Tis  not  in  riches  more  abundant,  nor  yet 
in  knowledge  at  too  great  a  cost,  but  in  the 
days  and  in  the  minutes  as  they  pass.  'Tis  in 
the  burning  of  the  flame." 

"Is  happiness,  then,  all  the  object  here 
below?" 

"Yes,  for  all  mankind,  'tis  all.  The  power 
above  us  may  a  different  object  have,  but  we 
know  it  not,  nor  shall  we  ever  know  it." 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  143 

"The  mind  can  never  see  itself,  can  never 
watch  its  coming  in  or  going  out.  Nor  can 
humanity  itself  behold  its  origin  or  ultimatum 
understand.  Your  mind  or  soul  is  but  a  part 
of  an  infinity ;  how,  then,  can  it  contain  or  com 
prehend  the  whole?" 

" Another  question:  What,  then,  is  happi 
ness — this  thing  for  which  I  blindly  seek." 

"Happiness!  The  gratification  of  desire 
is  happiness.  In  the  action;  in  the  knowl 
edge  of  past,  and  in  the  prospects  of  future 
such." 

"Is  ignorance,  then,  to  be  considered  bliss, 
with  only  one  desire,  if  it  be  satisfied?  Who 
is  the  happy  man?" 

"The  happy  man  is  he  who  has  the  greatest 
store  of  gratified  desires.  The  greatest  action, 
and  the  greatest  hope  in  future ;  the  least  pro 
portion  of  ungratified  desires.  But  this  com- 
prehendeth  much. 

"Knowledge  multiplies  desires.  Liberty  and 
peace  attain  their  satisfaction,  peace  of  mind 
attends  it,  and  no  one  stands  alone.  Base,  low 
desires,  when  gratified,  cripple  the  soul  and 
render  short  its  future  hope.  If  wants  are  sat 
isfied  before  desire  is  known,  it  brings  not  hap 
piness;  and  if  upon  one  desire  you  center  all. 


144  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

you  starve  the  soul  and  to  the  primitive  become 
akin. 

"If  now  you  would  the  greatest  good  attain, 
your  mission  here  on  earth  fulfill,  go  forth,  but 
to  these  things  attend.  For  this  that  I  have 
told  is  not  in  idle  jest,  but  is  the  deepest  truth 
that  man  as  yet  can  hold." 


CHAPTER  IX 

AFTER  this  Henry  loafed  around  San  Fran 
cisco  for  two  weeks.  He  could  not  get  the  idea 
into  his  head  that  he  wras  not  going  anywhere. 
It  was  not  that  he  was  so  completely  crushed 
with  sorrow^  though  he  loved  his  mother  dearly, 
as  dearly  as  any  boy  could  love  a  mother  who 
had  been  everything  which  a  mother  could  be, 
but  he  did  not  seem  to  be  able  to  get  a  hold  of 
things  again,  to  readjust  himself.  Did  you 
ever  take  a  quick,  unexpected  journey  of  a  day, 
and,  awakening  the  next  morning  in  some  dis 
tant  hotel,  have  it  take  you  a  minute  or  so  to 
understand  yourself?  Well,  that  is  just  the 
way  Hen  felt  the  whole  time.  His  whole  life 
had  been  unconsciously  so  fastened  to  this  one 
hope — from  his  very  first  boyish  brags — he  was 
always  going  to  be  a  big  man  and  take  care  of 
Dearest.  The  idea  that  anything  different 
might  happen  had  never  entered  his  head.  If 
he  had  ever  been  earnestly  in  love  with  some 
girl,  it  might  have  been  different ;  but  he  hadn't. 

145 


146  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

He  had  liked  many,  because  he  was  a  lovable 
fellow,  but  that  was  all.  He  had  never  taken 
girls,  as  girls,  seriously.  He  had  been  extreme 
ly  ambitious,  and  Dearest's  life  and  his  life  had 
flowed  in  such  a  harmony  that  he  had  never 
separated  the  two. 

Dearest  had  made  their  aim  and  object  one. 
She  was  living  only  for  her  boy,  and  he  had 
been  making  himself,  because  of  Dearest. 

Now  everything  appeared  different  to  him. 
He  thought  his  whole  existence  over  and  over 
and  over  again,  until  at  last  he  decided  that  life 
was  one  big,  uncertain  joke;  not  a  serious,  re 
liable  thing  in  it.  He  could  not  see  what  peo 
ple  ever  tried  to  do  anything  for. 

So  this  was  his  frame  of  mind  at  the  end  of 
two  weeks  when  he  took  a  position  in  the  office 
of  "Harding  &  Hassett."  He  was  spending 
days  in  job  lots,  just  passing  them  off;  Satur 
day  or  Monday  was  immaterial. 

"Harding  &  Hassett"  had  the  head  office  of 
a  big  life  insurance  company  in  San  Francisco. 
Mr.  Hassett,  the  junior  member  of  the  firm, 
who  had  come  from  New  York,  was  a  "frenzied 
financier,"  who  was  all  for  business  from  morn 
ing  till  night.  Hen  often  felt  as  if  he  would 
like  to  give  him  a  poke  in  the  mental  ribs  and 


Mrs.  Hassett 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  147 

say,  "Wake  up!  What  is  it  you  are  striving 
always  so  hard  for — something  real?  Bosh! 
man,  there  is  nothing  to  it."  Of  course,  he 
was  making  money,  but  what  of  that? 

Hen  was  with  them  five  months,  till  the  fall ; 
then  Hassett  took  his  family  and  one  other 
man  besides  Henry  and  moved  to  their  head 
office  at  Washington,  D.  C.  The  national  leg 
islature  was  convening  and  he  wanted  to  oper 
ate  things  on  the  ground. 

His  family  consisted  simply  of  his  wife,  Mrs. 
Hassett.  She  was  quite  different  from  him — 
one  of  those  sociable  little  bodies,  who  liked 
everybody  and  everything;  who  only  used 
money  to  buy  things  with,  and  who  always 
wanted  to  be  having  a  good  time,  if  possible. 
She  never  took  anything  very  seriously,  if  she 
could  help  it;  not  that  she  had  reasoned 
life  out  at  all,  but  simply  because  she  did  not 
want  to. 

Hassett  was  very  jealous  of  her.  His  was 
that  kind  of  a  nature.  The  mere  fact  that  he 
did  not  know  what  she  was  doing  at  any  given 
time  suggested  to  his  mind  the  idea  that  she 
must  be  doing  wrong.  He  was  too  busy  him 
self  to  spend  time  with  her  and  he  hated  to  have 
anybody  else  to.  He  was  jealous  of  men,  of 


148  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

course;  and  he  was  jealous  of  women — they 
might  take  her  off  where  there  were  men. 

For  some  unaccountable  reason — possibly 
because  he  had  seen,  as  we  have  said,  that  Hen 
never  took  women  seriously — he  kept,  in  a 
sort  of  unapprobatory,  temporary,  expedient 
way,  leaving  her  with  him.  We  are  sure  it  was 
not  because  he  had  implicit  confidence  in  Hen, 
but  more  probably  because  he  could  think  of 
nothing  better  to  do.  He  possibly  felt  a  little 
easier  at  thinking  he  knew  where  she  was.  If  he 
had  to  go  out  of  town,  he  would  have  Henry 
take  her  to  dinner.  If  he  were  busy  on  a 
Sunday,  he  would  allow  her  to  drive  to  the  park 
with  Mr.  Williams. 

Time  and  time  again,  Hen  sort  of  found  her 
on  his  hands.  She  often  remarked  about  it  in 
her  joking  way.  Some  women  would  have  let 
it  worry  them  into  the  blues,  but  she  was  just 
making  the  best  she  could  out  of  conditions  she 
seemed  to  be  unable  to  help.  And  Hen — well, 
we  would  not  say  that  Hen  tried  to  get  away 
from  her,  because  such  a  thing  as  that  was  not 
in  his  code  of  ethics,  and,  besides,  he  had  quite 
easily  slipped  from  toleration  to  something — 
well,  to  something  a  little  more  friendly  than 
that.  But  we  will  say  that,  regardless  of  the 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  149 

seemingly  unavoidable  circumstances,  his  con 
science,  which,  at  best,  was  very  dormant  on 
matters  of  this  kind,  did,  on  some  occasions, 
prick  him  a  little. 

Henry  stayed  with  the  Washington  office 
for  four  years;  though  not  connected  with  the 
political  end  of  the  company,  he  observed  in  a 
casual  way  the  exterior  of  the  machinery  of 
government.  What  the  soul  saw  made  it  al 
most  believe  itself  back  in  the  bosom  of  Mil- 
tias.  The  same  dual  system  was  at  work.  The 
same  deceitful  legislation  was  being  enacted. 
The  same  iniquitous  concurring  and  conniving 
of  lawmakers,  defeating  of  the  common  good, 
sacrificing  of  public  interest, — the  same  greedy 
secret  perfidy  which  it  had  seen  beneath  those 
ancient  Roman  togas.  And  what  was  even 
worse  than  the  lawmaking  was  the  corrupt 
judging  of  the  law.  Of  all  the  prostituting  of 
justice,  praeparo  decisions  writh  gold  for  evi 
dence,  fraudulent  injunctions  and  polluted 
truth  that  was  spued  out  of  those  sacred  tem 
ples  of  justice.  It  would  be  sacrilegious  to 
call  them  temples,  save  for  the  fact  that  the 
sanctity  of  the  courts  must  be  maintained  in 
the  eyes  of  the  people.  "An  aristocracy  of  the 
robe"  describes  the  condition  not  at  all.  The 


150  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

Star  Chambers  of  Charles  I  were  only  partial 
examples,  for  they  were  openly  avowed  in  their 
opposition  to  the  people. 

The  soul  recognized  plainly  the  condition. 
These  rulers  were  having  other  interests  than 
the  interests  of  the  nation,  were  getting  away 
from  the  people.  The  two  classes  were  form 
ing  again. 

But  why  were  not  these  representatives 
taken  to  account?  Did  the  enlightened  twen 
tieth-century  people  knowingly  submit  to  such 
betrayal,  such  flagrant  violation  of  oaths  and 
obligations?  Ah!  there  was  the  trouble.  The 
people  did  not  know.  The  great  educator  and 
enlightener  of  the  people,  the  great  check  and 
safeguard  of  representative  government,  the 
public  press,  the  thing  on  which  they  relied  for 
information,  was  perjured,  and  belied  the  cause 
it  purported  to  espouse,  bewildered  and  con 
fused  the  people,  or  buried  irrefutable  actuali 
ties  so  deeply  with  statistics  and  hypothetical 
intricacies  of  statecraft,  that  it  was  like  a  grain 
of  mustard  seed  lost  in  a  bushel,  or  a  miscar 
riage  of  justice  on  a  crowded  calendar. 

Thus  the  soul  saw  the  reins  of  government 
being  gathered  up ;  thus  the  people  being  sad 
dled  and  bridled  again — taxes  being  levied,  di- 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  151 

rect  and  indirect;  laws  being  thrown  out  on 
every  side  like  lines  to  a  runaway,  soon  they 
would  begin  to  tighten  and  to  prick. 

Hen's  observation,  as  we  said,  was  super 
ficial;  but  the  little  which  he  did  see  made  him 
still  firmer  in  his  belief  that  life  was  all  a  joke. 
If  he  had  been  one  of  the  poor,  struggling, 
starving  taxpayers,  with  a  family  of  eight  or 
ten,  who  had  to  suffer  by  these  unjust  laws  and 
decisions,  perhaps  it  would  not  have  appeared 
so  jokey  to  him.  Or  maybe,  perhaps,  it  would, 
and  he  would  have  only  said  that  he  had  the 
butt  end  of  the  joke.  Howsoever,  he  believed  it 
was  a  joke,  which  had,  on  some  occasions,  to  be 
taken  a  bit  serious — for  you  see,  he  was  twenty- 
eight  or  twenty-nine  now  and  single. 

He  began  to  speculate  as  to  the  veracity  and 
rationality  of  this  married  state,  with  a  settling 
down,  which  his  friends  talked  about.  But,  to 
tell  you  the  truth,  he  hadn't  a  valid  reason  in 
the  world  for  wishing  to  enter  it. 

He  was  enjoying  himself  immensely  and  had 
been  for  the  past  four  years.  Of  course,  he  had 
no  permanent  abiding  place — that  might  have 
been  one  thing;  and  the  philosophy  the  soul 
had  taught — that  no  man  wholly  died  save  he 
who  died  childless — might  have  been  another. 


152  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

He  wanted  to  make  sure  of  not  letting  the 
flame  go  out  with  him.  Faint  reasons,  he  ad 
mitted;  still,  as  we  say,  he  was  speculating 
about  it. 

He  hadn't  laid  by  much  of  anything  to  set 
tle  down  on.  You  see  he  hadn't  been  working 
much,  mostly  loafing  and  holding  down  an  easy 
job.  So  these  speculations  may  have  indi 
rectly  been  a  kind  of  recoil  from  his  inactivity ; 
a  sort  of  stretching  of  his  formerly  energetic 
nature.  Because  if  he  settled  down,  he  would 
have  to  begin  to  hustle  up. 

On  this  particular  June  morning  he  was 
standing  by  the  office  window,  looking  out  at 
the  figures  on  the  sidewalk  hurrying  to  and 
fro.  He  was  philosophizing  in  a  dreamy  way : 
the  thousand  and  one  different  motives  anima 
ting  these  different  individuals,  and  how  much 
alike  were  all — if  some  unseen  hand  could  give 
the  board  half  a  turn  without  awaking  the  play 
ers,  each  would  go  on  following  somebody 
else's  purpose,  none  would  know  the  difference. 
He  was  dreaming  thus,  not  laboring  with  any 
thought — just  thinking  passive-like — just  let 
ting  that  innermost  part  of  him,  which  was 
not  wholly  of  him,  spin  itself  along. 

A  sort  of  mellowness  was  in  his  heart.    He 


Souls  of  the  Infini  153 

took  it  for  a  feeling  kind  to  all  mankind;  but 
it  was  not  wholly  that.  There  was  in  it  some 
thing  more,  something  akin  to  instinct — a 
something  which  generally  comes  in  the  spring 
time  of  our  early  twenties.  But  at  that  time 
he  had  been  chasing  with  all  his  might  a 
phantom. 

Xow  let  me  give  you  an  accurate  picture  of 
this  last  house  of  the  soul  of  Thaddeus.  The 
soul  itself  we  trust  you  already  know  quite  in 
timately.  You  have  seen  it  in  its  first  wild 
state,  or  semi- wild — we  did  not  try  to  begin  at 
the  very  beginning,  because  that  is  such  a  dis 
agreeable  picture.  Man  in  his  primitive  sav 
age  state  was  anything  but  pleasing.  We  often 
hear  of  the  "free  and  noble  savage,"  but  it  is 
a  misnomer.  The  true  primitive  savage  was 
neither  free  nor  noble.  Xature  provided 
grudgingly  for  him.  He  had  neither  the 
strength  of  the  bull  nor  the  fleetness  of  the  wild 
ass.  He  had  not  a  furry  coat  like  the  humble 
denizens  of  the  wood,  nor  was  his  food  ready 
prepared  for  him  like  the  feathered  tribe. 
Thus,  imperfectly  protected,  he  roamed  about, 
suffering  from  the  heat  by  day  and  the  cold  by 
night,  hunger  and  starvation  always  staring 
him  in  the  face.  He  was  always  suspicious, 


154  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

always  in  danger,  always  on  the  watch,  afraid 
of  things  seen  and  unseen.  He  depended  on 
no  one  and  no  one  could  depend  on  him.  He 
expected  nothing  from  his  neighbors  and  did 
unto  them  as  he  believed  they  would  do  unto 
him.  Thus  his  life  was  one  prolonged  scene  of 
selfishness  and  fear. 

But  there  was  planted  in  him  a  quality  which, 
in  spite  of  his  physical  disadvantages,  was  to 
make  him  ruler  of  all.  This  quality,  or  essence, 
a  self-inspiring  something,  having  initiatory 
power,  we  have  called  the  soul,  but  which  ap 
pears  more  to  be  a  composite  thing,  made  up 
of  mental  attributes  and  a  subconscious  influ 
ence  from  experiences.  It  was  this  power  in 
man  which  brought  him  out  of  the  darkness, 
which  exemplified  the  true  grandeur  and  dig 
nity  of  the  animal,  which  broke  the  despotic 
sway  of  capricious  nature — that  power  which 
for  countless  cycles  of  ages  had  ruled  supreme 
over  the  earth. 

From  its  first  wild  state  we  have  followed  it 
through  ancient  Chaldea,  into  the  desert  of 
Arabia,  into  the  one-sided  Greek  civilization, 
through  the  materialism  of  Rome,  and  then 
back  into  the  morasses  of  western  Europe. 
We  have  watched  it  through  the  second  and 


Sauls  of  the  Infinite  155 

more  full  dawn,  then  down  to  the  present  time. 
We  have  seen  things  which  at  first  were  con 
sidered  superphysical  or  divine,  prove  to  be 
perfectly  natural ;  and  things  which  came  in  in 
a  perfectly  natural  way,  later  given  a  sacred 
significance.  We  have  seen  the  effects  of  brute 
domination,  the  tyranny  of  kings,  the  working 
of  civic  influences  and  the  stimulus  of  personal 
liberty.  We  have  seen  the  powerful  hold  of 
superstition,  fastened  by  ignorance,  and  have 
watched  the  very  tardy  extrication — many  ten 
tacles  still  firmly  fastened.  We  have  seen  hu 
manity  dwarfed  by  custom  and  stunted  by  un 
natural  laws. 

We  have  followed  this  trailing  vine  by  tedi 
ous  travel  torn,  through  all  the  winding  path, 
and  now  we  have  to-day  man,  who  is  the  com 
pilation  of  all  the  experiences  of  the  human 
race — the  direct  continuation  of  the  soul  which 
was  before  him — the  most  finely  organized  ma 
terial  of  this  terrestrial  portion  of  the  universe. 

Henry  Williams'  ambition  had  carried  him 
a  little  above  the  average  of  mankind.  He  had 
received  some  very  hard  bumps,  had  done  some 
very  hard  thinking,  and  was  trying  to  profit  by 
it.  To-day  as  he  walked  home  for  his  dinner, 
he  was  humming  "Give  my  regards  to  Broad- 


156  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

way."  His  mind  was  in  a  delicate  balance — 
agate-like — with  friction  reduced  to  a  mini 
mum.  Things  which  disturbed  him,  and  he 
was  unable  to  remedy,  he  tried  to  avoid ;  things 
which  pleased  him,  he  tried  to  follow.  He  was 
leading  a  life  which,  while  it  had  little  of  that 
keen  enjoyment  due  to  intense  emotion,  was 
filled  with  the  greater  amount  of  happiness. 
He  was  taking  the  peaceful  sweetness  out  of 
the  moments  as  they  passed.  And  as  the  tiny 
ripples,  which  kiss  the  beach  continually,  total 
more  than  the  crested  waves  which  roll  high, 
but  only  come  anon,  so  was  he  trying. 

But  too  much  quiet  in  youth  accumulates  an 
energy  which  is  like  fire-damp  in  an  unused 
mine.  He  was  following  the  soul's  philosophy 
too  implicitly.  His  balance  was  getting  tippy. 

The  following  morning,  as  he  came  in  to 
breakfast,  the  waitress  seated  him  on  the  oppo 
site  side  of  the  dining-room.  He  disliked  being 
moved,  but  forgot  it  a  second  later  and  was 
looking  over  the  morning  paper.  His  break 
fast  tasted  very  good,  and  he  had  nearly  fin 
ished  it,  when  he  happened  to  glance  over  at  his 
neighbors.  It  was  a  trifle  peculiar — he  glanced 
just  in  time  to  meet  a  glance,  some  one  who 
was  looking  at  him  over  the  shoulder  of  an 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  157 

elderly  gentleman.  He  almost  stared.  The 
incident  was  quite  a  surprise  on  both  sides,  I 
am  sure. 

How  Henry  happened  to  look  up  just  at 
that  instant  was  queer,  for  he  was  reading  an 
interesting  bit  of  news. 

The  couple  appeared  to  him  to  be  a  gentle 
man  and  his  daughter,  traveling.  Still  they 
might  have  been  boarding  there  a  month  and 
he  not  seen  them  from  his  regular  seat.  He 
wanted  to  get  another  look  at  the  girl,  but  her 
head  was  just  behind  the  old  gentleman's  and 
she  would  not  turn  it.  He  could  see  a  very 
voluptuous  mass  of  hair,  but  that  was  all. 

Xow  it  is  strange  that  such  a  trivial  thing 
as  this  should  affect  the  equilibrium  of  Henry. 
He  might  have  done  the  same  thing  a  thousand 
times  before  and  never  noticed  it — but  it  did. 
He  kept  thinking  all  sorts  of  things  as  he 
walked  down  to  the  office.  Yet  he  did  not 
really  know  how  she  looked,  nor  was  he  certain 
he  would  recognize  her  again,  unless  he  saw 
her  in  exactly  the  same  place  and  company — 
her  eyes  were  big,  and  he  believed  she  had  a 
dimple  in  her  chin,  but  was  not  sure.  Her  hair 
was  brown,  kind  of  a  silky  brown;  he  saw  that, 
plain  enough. 


[Souls  of  the  Infinite 

Things  were  quiet  at  the  office  that  morning. 
Hen  did  little  and  started  early  home  for 
luncheon,  but  his  expectations  were  disappoint 
ed.  Somebody  was  not  there. 

That  evening  at  dinner-time  he  did  not  see 
her,  but  the  dining-room  was  crowded — she 
might  have  been  there.  He  ate  demurely, 
listening  more  to  the  strains  of  music  as  they 
floated  o'er  the  hall.  The  violin  seemed  crying, 
crying,  and  the  harp  in  somber  notes  to  meas 
ure  time,  unheeding  of  its  fellow's  weeping 
tones. 

The  next  morning  he  came  down  to  break 
fast  thinking.  He  scanned  the  faces;  no  one 
was  there;  and,  though  he  glanced  repeatedly 
at  the  doorway,  no  one  £ame.  So  he  considered 
it  must  be  a  closed  incident;  a  ship  that  in  the 
twilight  darkness  passed.  He  walked  slowly 
down  to  work.  He  was  in  a  pensive  mood.  He 
hummed  a  tune,  but  there  was  nothing  about 
Broadway  in  it — it  sounded  more  like  "Dream 
ing  now  of  Hallie." 

Just  as  he  turned  into  the  building,  who 
should  step  out  of  the  elevator  but  this  same 
girl.  He  knew  her  instantly;  how  or  why  he 
could  not  surely  tell. 

Now  Hen  would  not  be  rude  enough  to  smile 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  159 

intently  at  a  lady  whom  he  did  not  know,  but 
he  was  just  that  pleased  at  seeing  her  that  he 
almost  did,  before  he  caught  himself.  She  no 
ticed  it,  but  did  not  recognize  it — not  by  any 
sign  that  he  could  name,  or  anybody  else  could 
name.  Her  eyelids  never  moved,  nor  did  her 
rosy  mouth  betray  a  line,  but  still  he  knew  she 
knew.  Something  he  felt — something  which 
came  from  her  eyes,  but  was  not  of  her  eyes. 
Now,  do  you  believe  that?  Do  you  believe  the 
eyes  can  give  a  sign  without  a  move,  or  with 
out  a  facial  line  to  aid  them?  Well,  they  can, 
and  if  you  travel  long  enough  you'll  find  it  so. 

Hen  went  up  to  the  office;  he  was  quite  ex 
cited.  Still  nothing  out  of  the  ordinary  had 
happened.  Nothing  peculiar  had  transpired. 
A  thousand  people  might  pass  him  in  the  Cen 
tral  Building.  A  thousand  people  might  stop 
a  day  at  the  modest  hotel  he  called  his  home. 
Nothing  peculiar,  save  that  which  had  hap 
pened  in  his  mind,  and  there  is  where  most  all 
peculiar  things  do  happen. 

The  way  he  fussed  around  the  office  all  that 
day  was  real  astonishing,  he  was  as  frustrated 
as  a  probation  pastor  at  a  "ladies'  aid."  He 
wondered  a  thousand  things.  Wondered  if  he 
could  have  seen  the  face  somewhere  before  and 


160  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

if  this  was,  then,  but  a  caper  of  his  memory. 
He  scanned  the  hotel  register  at  noon.  He 
called  the  clerk  to  help  him.  But  nothing 
could  he  find. 

For  'most  a  week,  though  oft  he  tried,  he  saw 
nor  heard  no  more.  Then  came  a  party  at  the 
house.  It  was  the  "Seventh  Annual  Ball," 
and  urban  gayety  was  there.  Hen  had  brought 
Mrs.  Hassett,  and  though  he  strove  to  enter 
tain  and  showed  her  every  courtesy,  still  some 
instinct  seemed  to  tell  her  he  was  ill  at  ease.  It 
unsettled  her.  She  hardly  permitted  him  to 
leave  her  sight. 

The  dance  was  crowded.  Hen  said  he  felt 
the  heat,  and  so  they  walked  amid  the  festoons 
of  the  open  court.  The  heavy  boughs  were 
fragrant  with  the  smell  of  pine.  The  Chinese 
lanterns  cast  a  feeble  glow.  They  passed  a 
large  palmetto,  in  a  wooden  vase,  and  there 
beneath  its  shadow  some  one  sat  alone.  Hen 
saw  her.  He  did  not  startle  though,  or  stop 
the  words  he  spoke,  but  in  that  instant  passing 
there  was  mutual  recognition  unavowed — was 
meaning,  more  than  words. 

Though  deep,  it  was  most  silent  and  most 
subtle,  this  greeting,  extremely  quick,  without 
an  outward  notice;  but  some  one  else  was  also 


Souls  of  ilie  Infinite  161 

quick,  alert,  and  almost  quite  as  subtle — his 
companion — she  saw  it.  She  had,  with  covert 
worry,  felt  Hen's  lately  listless  mood,  and 
when  nowr  he  thought  to  hurry  her  again  into 
the  dance,  she  would  not  go,  but  spoke  in 
anger : 

"Henry  Williams,  I  know  that  woman,  and 
I  saw  you  look.  You  need  not  lie  to  me.  You 
have  been  crazy  for  these  past  ten  days,  and  if 
you  think  that  Kittie  Hassett  is  simple  enough 
to  stand  for  this,  you  are  mistaken." 

"But,  Mrs.  Hassett "  Hen  was  excited. 

He  was  almost  scared.  He  had  never  seen  her 
playful  eyes  such  flaming  flashes  hold.  Be 
sides,  he  needs  must  haste  away;  a  moment 
more  might  be  too  late. 

"Don't  'but'  to  me!  I'm  not  a  child,  or  play 
thing  to  be  duped  by  pleasant  explanations,  or 
to  be  dropped  whene'er  you  have  a  mind.  I 
will  not  stand  it.  If  you  imagine  you  can  wipe 
the  slate,  of  these  four  years,  so  easily — I  tell 
you,  I  can  break  it!" 

"Now  do  be  kind  enough,  my  dear,  to  calm 
yourself,  or  folks  will  notice.  You  have  the 
next  dance  out,  I  know,  and  I  will  come. 
Listen— 

"I   will  not  listen.     Nor  will  you   come. 


162  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

We'll  both  sit  right  down  here,  till  every  dance 
is  out — or  till  morning,  for  that  matter.  Why, 
bless  my  soul!  Do  you  imagine — why,  mer 
ciful  goodness!  That  wicked  woman  yon 
der " 

"Now,  careful,  Dear,  you'll  make  a  scene." 
"A  scene!  A  scene  out  here,  pray  who's  to 
see  it?  She?  Yes,  she.  Well,  she  is  nobody. 
She  couldn't  go  into  the  ballroom.  You  know 
what  I  have  said  to  you  before,  Henry  Wil 
liams.  Now  you  are  beginning  it.  Well, 
there's  going  to  be  trouble  to-night.  Yes — * 
there'll  be  trouble  to-night,  alright, — but  we 
will  wait  till  the  party's  over." 

"You  and  that  woman — humph!  But  I  sup 
pose  you  know  her  well — have  met  her  often. 
Puh!  I've  known  all  this  week  that  there  was 
something  wrong  with  you;  but  I  did  not  sus 
picion  this.  No,  I  did  not  suspicion  such  a 
thing  as  this.  I  see  now  why  you  did  not  have 
the  time  to  telephone.  Oh!  I'm  a  simple  baby 
> — I'm  asleep." 

"Listen  a  minute.    I  do  not  know        " 

"No;  of  course,  you  do  not  know  her.    You 

do  not  know  anybody,  do  you?    You  think, 

Hennie,  because  I  have  always  been  so  quiet, 

because  I  am  always  joking,  that  I  do  not  care 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  163 

— that  I  have  no  heart.  Oh,  no !  Kittie  does 
not  care — she's  only  Kittie.  But  let  me  tell 
you  this — Kittie  does  care,  and  Kittie  is  not  an 
office  girl  or  chambermaid,  like  poor  Gracey 
Winters — to  sit  around  and  cry  and  hold  her 
hands.  What  I  say  I'll  do,  I'll  do.  And  we 
will  attend  to  consequences  afterwards. 

"Now  listen,  Henry.  If  you  were  in  love 
with  some  nice  single  girl — to  marry  her — all 
right,  I  would  not  say  a  word,  not  if  it  killed 
me ;  but  you  shall  not  leave  me  for  some  other 
man's  wife.  Not  while  I  am  in  my  sober 


senses." 


Hen  could  not  talk,  so  he  listened.  This 
state  of  affairs  had  changed  his  mind  about 
"hastening  away,"  so  he  pushed  his  arm  around 
the  back  of  the  seat,  and  gradually  the  storm 
subsided. 

At  first  he  had  been  too  surprised  to  think. 
He  had  not  expected  this — or  all  of  it — and 
now  was  glad  enough  to  have  the  quiet,  so  said 
no  more. 

They  sat  there  through  a  few  more  dances, 
then  went  inside.  Hen  took  her  program 
round  and  explained  that  she  was  ill,  then  got 
her  wraps,  and  took  her  home. 

The  taxi,  on  that  journey  home,  got  various 


164  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

orders.  First,  Mrs.  Hassett  said,  "Drive  to 
the  depot."  But  when  almost  there,  the  driver 
got  other  orders,  to  turn  and  drive  back  up 
to  Twentieth  Street.  Then  later  he  was  told 
again  to  drive  to  the  depot.  The  trail  of  that 
cab  was  marking  out  the  course  of  the  argu 
ment  within.  Finally,  though,  after  much 
coaxing  and  a  good  deal  of  promising,  plus 
numerous  cry  spells  alternated  with  periods  of 
reproachful  silence,  Henry  took  her  home. 

As  he  drove  back  he  was  too  unstrung  to 
meditate;  still,  things  kept  running  through  his 
mind: — So  Kittie  knew  the  girl — if  only  she 
had  said  her  name.  So  she  was  married — then 
this  old  gentleman  must  be  her  husband.  Kit- 
tie  said  she  was  very  bad — how  did  she  know? 
He  reached  for  his  handkerchief.  Something 
caught  the  lining  of  his  pocket.  It  was  his  ring 
—a  solitaire  Kittie  had  given  him.  Kind- 
hearted  Kittie — she  was  a  dear,  sweet  thing — 
he  liked  her.  It  was  not  her  fault — nor  was  it 
his.  It  was  unfortunate  that  such  things  must 
happen.  Well,  he  would  probably  never  see 
this  girl  again.  At  least,  he  would  try  not  to 
see  her. 

Next  morning,  as  he  came  down  to  break 
fast,  his  mind  was  still  quite  firm.  He  went 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  165 

straight  to  his  table,  sat  down  and  held  the 
morning  paper  well  above  his  face.  He  wanted 
very  much  to  take  a  look;  but,  no — 'twas  better 
not. 

But  his  stoic  self-restraint  was  wasted.  As 
he  got  up  to  go,  he  took  just  one  furtive  glance 
about  and  saw  the  empty  chairs.  He  drew  a 
long,  deep  breath  of  relief ;  but  was  it  relief,  or 
was  it  halfway  disappointment? 

His  morning  at  the  office  was  taken  up  most 
ly  with  hypothecating,  thinking,  quite  wor 
ried;  that  "agate  balance"  of  his  was  nowhere 
in  evidence. 

As  he  went  home  that  noon,  he  walked  much 
like  a  person  in  just  a  trifle  hurry.  But  the 
dining-room  was  empty,  no  one  was  there ;  that 
is,  no  one  for  him.  He  was  quite  a  little  dis 
appointed. 

He  sat  down,  took  up  his  napkin  to  unfold 
it — something  fluttered  to  his  lap,  a  tiny, 
white,  oblong  envelope.  He  opened  it,  and 
took  out  a  lady's  card;  with  it  came  a  breath 
of  heliotrope.  He  always  did  love  heliotrope; 
its  fragrance,  he  avowed,  was  intoxicating. 
The  card  was  engraved,  and  one-half  of  the 
name  had  been  erased,  leaving  only  "Fay." 
He  turned  it  over  and  on  the  back  was  writ- 


166  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

ten,  "We  start  for  the  country  to-morrow,  but 
I  will  be  sitting  in  the  court  at  eight  to-night." 
He  turned  it  over  again — "Fay,"  in  raised 
blue  script,  and  that  was  all. 

He  put  the  letter  in  his  pocket.  He  was 
pleased, — more  than  pleased. 

"Meet  me  in  rose- time,  Rosie,"  he  hummed 
as  he  left  the  hotel.  His  mind  was  full  of  gen 
tle  ripples,  like  the  stilling  of  troubled  waters. 
He  greeted  the  office  girl  with  a  pleasant, 
"How  do  you  do,  Carrie?"  and  one  of  his  most 
beaming  smiles.  The  afternoon  could  not  slip 
by  too  soon  to  suit  him. 

"Nice  how  those  electric  fans  do  work,"  he 
remarked  to  himself  as  he  rolled  back  the  top 
of  his  desk,  "it  must  have  been  a  good  man  who 
invented  them  .  .  .  nice  draft  from  the 
ventilator,  too,  and  the  shades  on  the  window 
made  the  light  just  right  for  his  desk  .  .  . 
this  world  isn't  nearly  so  bad  as  some  people 
would  make  it  out  to  be.  Thus  the  cuckoo 
clock  was  cooing  away  the  afternoon,  till  an 
hour  or  so  before  closing  time,  when  he  had  a 
caller.  It  was  Kittie.  She  had  on  her  dearest 
gown,  a  pink  silk  Empire,  and  the  biggest 
picture  hat  with  a  great  white  plume,  which 
kept  bobbing  against  her  cheek.  Her  eyes 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  167 

looked  tired,  but  just  as  blue, — Kittie's  eyes 
always  did  have  the  bluest  blue  shadows,  in 
their  blue,  of  any  eyes  you  ever  saw.  She  did 
look  sweet;  but  this  was  so  unexpected,  so  in 
opportune.  It  upset  his  thinking  machine.  She 
rarely  came  to  the  office.  He  expected  her  to 
telephone. 

"Well,  kiss  me,  Hennie.  How  do  you  like 
my  new  bonnet  ?  I  have  come  to  tell  you  some 
thing:  Mr.  Hassett  has  to  go  to  Philadelphia 
again  this  afternoon.  I  fixed  up  the  telegram 
through  Mrs.  Brown — now  don't  scold  me — 
and  he  said  that  I  might  go  to  dinner  with 
you/' 

Did  we  say  Hen's  thinking  machine  was  up 
set?  It  was  worse  than  that.  It  was  busti- 
cated.  His  eyes  popped  so  wide  open  they  hurt 
him,  and  Kittie  stood  so  close  to  him,  he  could 
not  swing  round  to  get  a  breath.  He  kissed 
her  and  dropped  down  into  a  chair,  and  looked 
at  her. 

"Well!  Of  course— I'll  be  delighted  to  take 
you  to  dinner.  But  your  audacity  stupefie* 
me.  When  did  Mr.  Hassett  go?" 

"I  just  came  from  seeing  him  off." 

"You  fixed  it  up  through  Mr*.  Brown? 
Well,  he'll  find  that  out." 


168  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

"I  hope  not.  Mrs.  Brown  is  to  tell  him, 
when  he  gets  there,  that  she  made  the  mistake, 
and  that  it  was  somebody  else  her  husband  left 
the  message  for,  and  she  sent  it  down  by  the 
Jap." 

"Well,  then,  I  suppose  he  will  get  the  'Owl' 
back  at  midnight." 

"Uh  hu — if  she  can't  keep  him  any  longer." 

"Well,  Kittie,  do  you  know  I  don't  know 
what  to  think.  I  didn't  suppose  you  would  do 
such  reckless  things." 

"Now,  don't  say  anything  mean.  This  is 
the  first  pleasant  moment  I  have  had  to-day;" 
and,  with  a  little  sigh  of  relief,  Kittie  sat  down, 
not  in  a  vacant  chair,  however. 

Well,  they  went  to  dinner.  Hen  took  her 
early,  so  as  to  have  time  to  think,  but  he  had 
little  hope  of  extricating  himself  before  mid 
night.  Kittie  had  him  "hanging  to  the  ropes." 

He  was  just  as  nice,  however,  as  he  could  be; 
Kittie  almost  forgot  her  worries,  and  was  a 
little  off  her  guard.  At  five  minutes  to  eight 
they  were  seated  in  the  lobby.  Hen  had  intro 
duced  some  new  guests  and  they  were  chatting. 
Then  he  sneezed,  and  asked  to  be  excused  a 
minute  to  go  and  get  a  heavier  coat. 

That  sounded  very  plausible,  didn't  it? 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  169 

He  took  the  elevator  up,  hopped  off  at  the 
second  floor,  shot  down  the  stairs  and  sauntered 
across  the  court,  toward  the  big  palmetto 
plant.  It  was  quite  dusk,  but  somebody  was 
waiting  there — just  where  she  had  sat  the 
evening  before.  Hen  walked  straight  up  to 
her  and  held  out  his  hand. 

"Miss  Fay,  you  don't  know  how  I  ap 
preciate  this.  It  was  most  awfully  kind  of 
you." 

She  gave  his  hand  a  hearty  little  squeeze  and 
moved  over  for  him  to  sit  down,  remarking 
that  she  had  overhead  the  conversation  of  the 
night  before.  Hen  explained  it  to  her.  Also 
he  explained,  as  best  he  could,  his  present  situ 
ation,  and  begged  a  thousand  pardons  if  he 
seemed  to  hurry ;  asked  her  if  he  might  call,  and 
when  and  where,  saying  that  since  now  they 
were  acquainted  she  might  be  kind  enough  to 
put  her  journey  off  a  day  or  so. 

In  those  short  moments  there  was  a  lifetime 
of  acquaintance  made,  a  meeting  of  the  soul. 
Hen  got  up  to  go.  "Now,  before  I  say  good- 
by,"  he  said,  "let  me  a  secret  whisper."  She 
turned  her  fluffy-duffle  head  up  to  the  side. 
Hen  bent  over  awfully  close,  but  it  was  not 
whispering  at  all  he  did.  I  am  surprised — and 


170  Souls  of  the  Infinite 

to  think  she  would  allow  it;  but  then  she  prob 
ably  had  not  time  to  help  herself. 

Two  minutes  later  Henry  walked  into  the 
lobby,  as  lively  as  a  cricket.  He  had  the  same 
coat  on,  however,  but  Kittie  did  not  notice  it, 
he  was  so  splendidly  attentive. 

Well,  Fay  stayed  th^  next  day  and  the  next. 
A  week  slipped  by.  Then,  too,  these  clandes 
tine  appointments  were  getting  numerous. 
Hen  simply  could  not  keep  away  from  her, 
though,  it  was  true,  she  was  not  as  nice  a  girl  as 
Kittie.  But  then,  poor  Fay,  perhaps  she  had 
not  had  as  good  an  opportunity.  You  cannot 
people  judge  alone.  Man  is  still  a  creature  of 
environment;  provided  the  environment  is 
strong  enough.  So,  then,  it  is  environment 
that  we  must  judge.  Fay  Naples  was  as  good 
a  girl  as  she  could  be,  nor  was  she  trying  now 
to  add  to  Kittie's  sorrow;  she  had  had  heart 
aches  of  her  own  enough.  Yet  neither  could 
she  bring  herself  to  break  with  Henry,  because, 
well — because,  to  her,  he  bore  a  different  name; 
for  Fay  was  Phillis. 

Things  here  were  badly  out  of  joint.  What 
was  to  do  ?  What  could  be  done  ?  Poor,  pretty 
Fay,  with  all  her  sins,  was  guilty  of  no  moral 
wrong,  no  wilful  injuries  to  any  one;  'twas 


Souls  of  the  Infinite  171 

merely  customs  she  had  broken.  And  Kittie's 
heart  was  aching;  she  had  loved,  and  was  she 
now  to  lose?  Nor  can  you  really  censure 
Henry.  Some  sorrow  seems  a  sine  qua  non  to 
happenings  here  below,  but  again  do  our 
stupid  customs  make  it  doubly  hard  to  bear. 
A  lifelong  unhappy  existence  should  not  be 
made  the  price  of  one  youthful  error.  The 
more  unhappiness  we  exact,  the  worse  off  we 
make  ourselves.  Neither  should  love  be 
strangled  because  it  runs  not  to  a  customary 
line;  the  more  love  there  is  in  the  world,  the 
better  the  world  is  off  for  it. 


THE  END. 


»• 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

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MAY  23 


JU 


MAY  26 1922' 


20m-l,'22 


YB  06877 


461261 


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